Adventures with Aurors
by unlikely2
Summary: Post war. Being an Auror is really not a glamorous occupation. Parallel world after HBP.
1. Chapter 1

Desperately, she folded herself into as small a ball as possible and rolled under a table before one of the laughing, anorexic airheads could skewer her to the carpet with their stilettos.

Tonks was not having a good day. In fact, the entire week had been a disaster. On Monday she had received the invitation to the wedding of Remus Lupin and Lucy Reive. Later on in the day, while she'd been arresting Mundungus Fletcher, he'd thrown up on her in the presence of muggles and it had been some time before she could clean herself up. Thursday she'd spent two hours as a chicken.

After spending most of the day reconciling Auror expenses she'd discovered that she was using a 'Write-Wrong' quill.

She had arrived at Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes without passing go and one of the unexpurgated idiots had fired something at her from a water pistol. Unfortunately a chicken with metamorphic abilities tends to be a small dinosaur. Given the extreme penalties for hexing an Auror, the twins had been reluctant to attempt it until their nephew came into the shop. 'Velociraptor' was a long word for a three year old, but his mother seemed to be getting the idea, and Tonks had been glad to escape the premises before Fleur went completely Weasley on them.

Friday was, despite all probability, shaping up to be worse. Having finally made up for Thursday's wasted effort, she had been looking forward to a long bath followed by a meal out with her colleagues Gates and Styles when an alert had come in concerning Bellatrix Lestrange.

After the fall of Voldemort, most of the Death Eaters had gone to ground. Not so the Lestranges. Bellatrix had taken to urban terrorism like a hooligan to extra strength lager. At Headquarters, pictures of her leered out from every wall. Now, instead of relaxing with wine and dinner, she and her team were at the Exhibition Centre posing as members of an anti-terrorism squad. Three weeks ago the Lestranges had visited Porton Down. Staff there, while exceedingly reluctant to discuss exactly what had been taken, wanted it back rather urgently. Germ warfare was a new idea to some of Tonks' colleagues but they had caught on fast. Twelve days later they had succeeded in capturing Rabastan Lestrange. While this had been the cause of general rejoicing, the Aurors themselves were less happy. Rabastan had, at least, exercised some control over his wife's proclivities.

Better yet, they had the Ministry's favourite Auror Cadets in tow. While Granger was on her way to becoming the youngest Unspeakable in several centuries, it was no sort of secret that Potter and Weasley had been accepted only so that they could be watched more efficiently.

Back stage at the fashion show, they had finally located their contact. A blonde man in eyeliner and skin tight leather trousers had led them into a corner behind racks of clothes. 'Hi Adam,' he'd said.

'Draco? What's this about?' demanded Styles.

'Something left over from Aunty Bella teaching me Occlumency. I always know when she's around. She's here somewhere. And she's horribly excited about some sort of muggle potion she's got.'

'No, I meant the clothes,' clarified Styles. 'Should that be absence of clothes?'

'They pay me,' said Malfoy. 'If you'll remember, the Ministry's still sitting on my inheritance.' Weasley had begun to snigger loudly.

'Weasley,' Malfoy sneered. 'Are they still paying trainees a pittance? And making deductions from that pittance for uniform and a grotty Ministry flat? I don't even get out of bed for less than . . .'

'Yeah? And what do you get_ into_ bed for?' interrupted Ron.

Without hesitation Draco's fist had flashed out and Ron was staggering backwards, clutching a bloody nose. 'Shut the fuck up and try not to bleed on the clothes. You can't afford it.'

It got worse.

Tonks was wondering how the muggles kept the clothing in place. She'd been forced to resort to sticking charms for her borrowed finery. Seven inches taller that usual; a mass of blonde hair was making her neck ache. Shoes that doubled as lethal weaponry had been strapped to Tonks' feet and she had actually managed to totter about six and a half yards before she fell. Now she was under a table, threatening to damage anyone who came near her, and trying not to cry.

'_I'm truly sorry, Tonks, but it's for the best. It can't work for us. How long before you begin to reckon just how much you're losing because of me? Lucy's a werewolf. She understands'_

'_Do you love her?'_

'_Yes.'_

_Tonks had strangled a sob. 'More than me?'_

'_I'm sorry.'_

'_Do you love her more than me?' Tonks had muttered through clenched teeth, lengthening incisors cutting into her lower jaw. Remus had been so offensively reasonable that she'd wanted to rip his throat out._

'_Yes.'_

'Walking in heels is difficult if you're not used to it.'

Tonks snapped to. Her personal life had nothing to do with the job. One of the 'airheads' had ducked down beside her and begun gently to unfasten the shoes. 'It's a lot harder than it looks,' she said. 'And you wouldn't be able to see anything from the catwalk anyway. And that designer's a bastard. Damage these and he'll throw a fit. You should really try to get up off the floor.' She pulled a handful of tissue out of her pocket. 'Here.' Tonks blew her nose. 'Draco says there's some sort of nutter loose?'

'Yeah.'

'If you've a picture of her, I'll take a wander outside. Maybe I can spot her.'

There lay the problem: with Polyjuice, Bellatrix could look like anyone. 'She'll be in disguise,' said Tonks. 'But thank you anyway.'

'So how are you going to recognise her?'

'She's a foreigner. She's likely to dress a bit oddly.'

The girl looked at her. 'Most of them are foreigners and they all dress oddly. They're rich.' Taking the shoes, she climbed out from under the table leaving Tonks to pull herself together.

'Ah, there you are.' The tablecloth was lifted and Gates' face appeared. He considered her clothing. 'Did it look like that before you put it on?' he asked. Tonks snorted and slid out from under the table.

Gravely, Styles helped her to her feet.


	2. Chapter 2

So, you're saying that, because the Centre's full of diplomatic totty, it's suddenly serious?' demanded Gates.

Mehitabel Fortinbras sighed. 'What I said was, that in the light of the summit meeting, and the probability that many of the delegate's spouses are here, that it has been decided that this fashion show is to be considered a primary target.'

'So how's that different?'

'It's like this,' put in Styles. 'There are those who make the mess and those who clear it up and only very rarely are they the same people.'

Fortinbras turned to Tonks. 'Sorry, Tonks. I don't like to do this to you, but if it all goes pear-shaped, it'll look better if someone with a bit more seniority's in charge.'

Tonks shrugged. 'Fine by me.'

If, as seemed likely, things did go pear shaped, Fortinbras would weather any fallout and Tonks' fledgling career would not suffer damage. While Tonks felt irritation, her colleague was being supportive as well as practical. She watched the television monitor as Draco paraded to the end of the catwalk and then slipped of his raincoat and draped it over one shoulder before swaggering back. As he emerged backstage he redonned the raincoat. Perhaps the fact that the area was now heaving with Aurors was making him feel vulnerable.

'No barriers to apparition?' queried Fortinbras.

'Aunty Bella's completely batshit. If she thinks she's trapped she'll use it,' said Draco.

'Good evening, Mr. Malfoy. In the light of events, perhaps you should have this back.' Fortinbras offered Draco his wand and Draco took it from her as if it were fragile. He had been expecting to have to wait at least another two years for it under the terms of his parole.

'Thanks.' Draco slipped most of the wand into one of the coat's deep pockets hiding the rest with his sleeve. He probably wouldn't let go of it for a week.

'Mr. Malfoy, have you any idea where your aunt might be?' asked Fortinbras.

'Can't see anything from the stage,' replied Draco.

'So perhaps you could search for her in the body of the hall?'

Draco closed his eyes for a moment. This, of course, was why he had his wand back. He smiled ruefully. 'Be it on your conscience then if those women eat me alive,' he said before striding off towards a side door.

'How come?' asked Fortinbras

'Draco's paternal grandfather had a sister who was a squib,' explained Tonks.

'And she survived?'

'She was a pretty little thing. An uncle arranged to have her adopted by muggles. Anyway, she should have inherited but didn't, so Narcissa cut a deal with her daughter. The Ministry will have to hand over the squib sister's share because Lucius Malfoy shouldn't have had it in the first place.

'So what's Draco doing here?' asked Styles.

He's staying with his muggle "Auntie Patricia",' replied Tonks. 'Of course, if he calls her that she hits him with her handbag. So I'm told. My mum arranged it. Draco's safer here than he would be, wandless, in the wizarding world.'

'Ok. Any ideas on drawing Bellatrix out?' asked Fortinbras.

'None at all,' said Tonks, 'and we daren't even let her suspect that we're here. Anything useful from Rabastan Lestrange?'

'Well he's confirmed that the woman's not rational,' said Fortinbras. 'Apparently she spends a lot of time creating and then destroying Snape simulacra or worshipping at some sort of Dark Lord Shrine. She seems to think he's coming back.'

'Nice,' murmured Tonks and then 'Oh good. McLaggan.'

Auror Lachlan McLaggan strode towards them. Behind him, a group of five Auror Cadets formed his entourage. 'Tonks, isn't it?'

Tonks smiled sweetly. He knew her name. For almost a week, during training, he'd been her supervisor until he'd become rather loud about her accidentally causing a large flower pot to fall from a roof above him. Unfortunately it had missed. To the good, McLaggan had definitely lost interest in peering up her robes.

'In view of the seriousness of the situation and your lack of experience,' stated McLaggan,' I shall be taking charge.'

'Actually,' said Tonks, 'Fortinbras is in charge.' She could hear Potter and Weasley sniggering. So could McLaggan; he tramped off to find someone else to bully.

'So that's where Cormac gets it from,' muttered Weasley.

'Watch it you two,' said Tonks.' He's got a very long memory and no sense of humour whatsoever.' Then she spoiled it by adding. 'How in hell did that get to be an Auror?'

'Excellent exam results, family influence and very careful attention to hierarchy, announced a deep voice from behind her.' Kingsly Shacklebolt, for all his size, could move like a cat. He afforded the bedlam around them the benefit of his massive consideration. 'So. How do we find her?'

Tonks attempted to shake her head. The hair had to go. A moment's concentration brought the length to a little below her jaw. 'I don't know. Can't even put up anti-apparition wards in case we tip her off. She could be gone already but I suppose that would be too much to hope for?'

'Is anyone looking for her?' asked Kingsley.

'Draco Malfoy,' replied Fortinbras. 'Out in the hall.'

'Right,' said Shacklebolt, ducking behind a rack of clothes. 'Urggh!' Retching and sneezing noises came from behind the clothes and then 'Oh damn. Wrong hair.' After a minute a plump brunette in a waitress uniform emerged scowling.

'Teach you to be more careful with Polyjuice,' said Tonks. 'At least they won't make you wear the shoes.'

'Shoes aren't a problem,' replied Shacklebolt, heading for the side door.

Tonks decided not to ask.

'Sorry to hear about you and Remus,' said Fortinbras quietly, 'but it probably was for the best.' Tonks felt her hackles rising. 'Not because he's a werewolf, but because Remus is Remus. He couldn't afford to see himself as a burden.'

'He wasn't,' said Tonks.

'You'll never convince him of that.'

Tonks sniffed, but said nothing as the roiling darkness rose within her. She gritted her teeth, willing herself not to cry or kill something.

'Look, are you doing anything tomorrow night?' said Fortinbras. 'We're having a bit of a girls' night out.'

Tonks had heard about the infamous "Girls' Nights Out."

They were rumoured, in the past, to have included Polyjuice, midnight Quiddich and troll baiting and she'd been told that the "Failure to secure evidence in the recommended manner," that sullied Fortinbras' "Record" related to an incident in which an illegal lethifold-acromantula cross and a collection of runespoors had been discovered on and under Fudge's favourite couch. Alcohol was mandatory as was, apparently, the harassment of anything daft enough to get in the way. Oddly enough the only rules were "nothing permanent and no obliviation", which meant that some degree of intelligence and circumspection were required.

On the other hand, they were witches.

'Ok,' said Tonks.

* * *

Lachlan McLaggan here is Cormac McLaggan's dad. 


	3. Chapter 3

'Here, let me do that.' It was the girl who had spoken to Tonks earlier. Tonks handed over the hanger with the clothes. 'How's your friend?'

'Ok, I guess,' muttered Tonks. 'Unhappy love affair.'

'Ouch.' The girl had found the right place on the rail and was carefully hanging the haute couture that Tonks had borrowed. 'I'm Sandy, by the way.'

'Tonks.'

'Nymphadora Tonks? Draco's cousin?'

Tonks stiffened. _Draco should not have been talking to muggles, _she thought. While she understood the need for obliviation, she didn't like it. The spell was known to cause varying degrees of damage to the subject's short term memory as well as having far too much in common with _Imperius_ for her liking. 'What did he say?' she asked.

'Not a lot. Truth be told he was stoned. He'd been talking to this girl who's studying genetics at Uni. and then he . . . well he went quiet for a bit and then . . . Well, never mind. I only remembered because your name's so unusual.

'I prefer Tonks.'

'Yeah?' Sandy finished fussing with the rail and turned, smiling. 'I got christened Alexandrina. They hoped my rich great uncle would leave me all his money.'

'And he didn't?'

'Not yet.'

'A hand here!' Tonks turned to see Gates half carrying Draco Malfoy. 'Bellatrix . . . some sort of cutting hex to his eyes . . . can't stop it.'

'Sit him down.' Styles dragged a chair into the corner behind the clothes rails. Arm across his eyes, Draco allowed himself to be guided into the seat. 'Let me see.'

'Get Snape,' demanded Malfoy and then hissed with pain.

Tonks took a moment to envision the young woman that she had seen climbing up the underside of a rock face and then concentrated.

She was already feeling hungry and the changes to her body would send her metabolic rate through the roof, but she needed the physical strength. Gently, she took hold of Draco's wrist and pried his arm away from his face. His eyelids were a crisscross pattern of tiny cuts, beginning to ooze blood where they intersected.

'I'll get him,' said Styles and turned to find himself blocked by McLaggan.

'Involving civilians? No laddie. We'll deal with it.' He tipped back Draco's chin and examined the damage. 'No problem.' Tonks spun round to find, to her horror, that she could see no sign of Fortinbras or Shacklebolt. _'Finite Incantatum!'_ intoned McLaggan and Draco jerked back with a sob of pain. There were now deep cuts across both eyelids. McLaggan looked interested.

'Idiot!' hissed Malfoy. 'It's Bellatrix . . . She's reinforced it. Get Snape or get me to Saint Mungo's.'

'All in good time,' said McLaggan easily. 'Why don't you tell us about your aunt?'

'I went looking for her because an Auror asked me to,' spat Draco.

'Do you always do what you're asked to do?' said McLaggan. 'Go looking for Aunty Bella? Let Death Eaters into Hogwarts? How far will the spell go anyway?'

'All the way.' Draco had begun to shiver.

'Here. It's crushed ice. Might help.' Sandy forced her way through the throng and laid a dripping linen napkin across Draco's eyes. 'Somebody, do something,' she pleaded.

Potter caught Tonks eye, she nodded and Potter and Weasley sped of in the direction of the toilets. Feeling sick, she tried to work out how long it would take for Snape to reach them and if Draco would still have eyes by then. 'Ok,' breezed McLaggan, 'Let's try something different.'

'No!' yelped Draco.

McLaggan raised his wand and Tonks interposed herself between them. 'Unless you know what you're doing, which you don't, leave him alone. We'll call Saint Mungo's,'

'I think you'll find that I'm in charge' said McLaggan. 'Move, Auror Tonks or face charges of insubordination.'

'Where's Fortinbras?' demanded Tonks.

'Reporting to Headquarters.' McLaggan smiled. 'She may be gone a while. Now get the hell out of my way.'

'He's in this state because he chose to help us,' persisted Tonks.

'He wouldn't be here at all if he hadn't chosen to help Voldemort. Shouldn't have let those scum into school, should you boy?' McLaggan tried to push Tonks aside.

Tonks took a deep breath and then she took McLaggan's wand. 'I think we can manage without the impromptu torture sessions,' she said.

'Unless you want to face charges for obstructing . . . attacking an Auror in the course of his duty . . .'

It was with relief as well as astonishment that she saw the door to the toilets open and Snape glide through. 'Professor Snape,' said Tonks, loudly.

As the Dark Arts expert approached, a path opened up before him. Snape knelt in front of Draco and took hold of his hands, still clutching the napkin across his eyes. 'Let me see.' Draco allowed Snape to draw the napkin away from his face. 'What did she use?'

'I don't know. _Petrificus_ first, I think, and then she said something about those who have eyes and will not see. D'you think it could've been_ "Sectumsempre"_?'

Snape drew his wand and began to murmur incantations. Tonks found Potter at her elbow. 'How'd he get here so fast?' she whispered.

'Portkey to Grimmauld Place, then apparition. I sent Dobby. Will Malfoy be alright?'

_And that is why Potter's not about to become the next Dark Lord,_ thought Tonks. While Potter continued to surprise people by achieving the impossible, calculated cruelty just wasn't in his makeup.

She put an encouraging hand on his shoulder and he turned to her. 'Ron's gone to get Hermione as well.'

Tonks would have worried more about it if Snape had not, at that moment stopped chanting. Apparently satisfied with his wandwork, he reached into his robes and brought out a jar of salve. Long fingers smeared paste across Draco's eyelids and the young man blinked and gave a sheepish smile. 'Thanks,' he murmured.

Saying nothing, Snape rose smoothly to his feet. Outside the small alcove formed by the rails, he stared in disbelief at the back stage area. 'Whoops!' Sandy exclaimed. 'Draco you're on in six minutes.'

'Shit,' said Draco attempting, unsuccessfully, to slide past Snape whose hand shot out like a snake.

Snape's long fingers flexed on Draco's shoulder. 'Explain.'

'It's a living.'

'Draco, if you're that short of money . . .'

'Here,' Draco pulled what looked like a contract from his pocket and showed it to Snape. 'And that's just for today.'

'And you do what, precisely?' Snape's voice had become icy.

Draco pointed at the television screen on which number of young men were cruising the catwalk and displaying their talents. As Snape's expression darkened further, Draco began hurriedly: 'Look, the people who pay me don't need the money and the people I pay do. I'm an essential part of the economic equation.' Snape glared at him. 'I didn't have a wand.'

'And whom do you pay?' Snape enquired.

Draco shrugged. 'Bartenders and taxi drivers for the most part,' he said, before adding more quietly: 'First, do no harm . . .'

'Draco!' came a yell.

Draco attempted to take off at a run and then stopped, rocking on his feet to regain his balance.

'Draco?' enquired an individual that Tonks at first took for a witch before deciding that she had to be one of the muggles responsible for this haute couture hell. 'Who's this then?' she asked, circling Snape appraisingly, drinking in the details of the teaching robes that he had not had time to change. As she ran her fingers down the professors' gown, Snape raised one eyebrow and the woman smiled. 'Utterly gorgeous, love,' she told Draco. 'But can he move?'


	4. He's too

'What do you mean, can I move?' demanded Snape advancing with his usual predatory glide.

The designer's mouth dropped open. 'Absolutely fabulous, darling, you'd make a bloody terrifying teacher. Classical actor I suppose?' Snape scowled. 'Ok then, same terms and conditions as the kid. Draco, sweetie are you alright? You look a bit . . .' Draco, in consequence of recent events, was looking thoroughly off colour. 'You know I'm tolerant, dear, but no "help" while working.'

'I've don't do drugs,' said Draco, stiffly. 'At all.'

'His aunt attacked him,' supplied Tonks.

'The crazy one? Well, they get like that sometimes in old families. Ok, sweetie. I'll get Kevin to cover for you this time, since you've brought me such a delicious prop.' She ogled Snape. 'I need you to walk - make it dangerous - down to the end of the catwalk and wait there until you get the signal to come back. Not too much, though. You're a prop.' She poked Snape with a forefinger. 'Not Dramatis Personae. It's the clothes they're here to look at, right? Five minutes.' With relief, Tonks noticed that Fortinbras was back.

While Tonks was bringing her colleague Fortinbras up to speed, McLaggan attempted to lean on Snape. From the Defence against the Dark Arts Master's derisive smirk, Tonks could tell that it wasn't going well. McLaggan had reached the purplish colour of a wine stain. His thick neck appeared even thicker and it looked as if it might be possible to boil an egg on his head. Tonks winced. 'How did McLaggan do at shaking down Snape?' she asked.

'He didn't. Apparently he was sick that day, which may explain why he spent eight years in Accounts.'

'Eight years?' queried Tonks, aghast. After passing their exams, people had been known to work for years in various capacities before finally obtaining the coveted name of Auror, often without ever quite knowing just what they'd done wrong. Pending official investigation of the falling flowerpot incident, Tonks had herself done eight days in 'Accounts' before deciding, for the sake of her own sanity and the safety of her colleagues, to work for no more than an hour a day and spend the rest of her time in the Library. To her surprise the decision had apparently been met with not only tolerance but approval. She'd wondered if that was what was meant by her first responsibility being to herself. _If I'd any sense, I'd bugger off right now _she decided eying the incipient explosion in the corner. As usual, Fortinbras was much, much too cheerful.

'McLaggan,' breezed Fortinbras, 'I feel, and McMillan agrees with me, that it would be unwise to have too many of our people here. If it goes arse up we'll need someone to take out the garbage and arrange our excuses and, as it seems that Accountancy have another little snarl-up on their hands, sorry old man but I'm pulling rank. Take the kids with you.'

Like a dog dragged away from a deli, and without taking his eyes from Snape, McLaggan took four heavy steps backwards before swinging around and barking 'To me!' He blundered off, followed by goggling Auror Cadets; Weasley and Potter conspicuously absent from among them.

'The consummate Slytherin,' scoffed Snape. 'You'll find yourself owing the Ministry your next several months' salary.'

'Happens,' shrugged Fortinbras. 'I'll borrow some off you then.'

Snape smirked and then all humour left his eyes. 'The nature of the attack on Mr. Malfoy would suggest a trap.'

'Yes,' said Fortinbras. 'I'm sorry about that.'

'Get lost,' enunciated Snape.

'Severus,' said Fortinbras, 'if you don't help us people will die.'

'I think you'll find that it isn't my problem.'

Fortinbras got closer to Snape and began, very gently, to brush imaginary fluff off his shoulder. 'If that stuff the Muggles brewed gets loose we could loose half of London,' she confided. Millions of people. And if that bitch gets away, millions more worldwide. And then we can forget all about the statute of secrecy. All because she's pissed off with you. So I want you to do like the nice lady said, and sashay down to the end of the catwalk. Aggravate her a bit more and, with luck, she'll take a pop at you and then we can grab her.' She met his eyes. 'I know that you think we're unable to organise a piss-up in a brewery and you know that you're going to do it anyway so let's get on with it, shall we?' She turned to Tonks and the others. 'Ok, you lot.'

'Sashay?' demanded Snape in a dead voice.

'Sashay,' confirmed Fortinbras. 'Face it, Snape. If anyone can, it's you.'

Three minutes later found Tonks standing in the hall proffering intricately crafted and entirely superfluous nibbles. No-one was eating this season, it seemed. As she straightened up her stomach rumbled. In a doomed effort to complete paperwork she had skipped lunch and dinner had, perforce, been cancelled. Morphing was putting the usual strain on her metabolism and, while the calorific value of the food in her hand was negligible, Tonks was ravenous. After quick glance round she jammed a handful of fishy somethings into her mouth and then, quite abruptly, found herself unable to move. _'Petrificus,' _thought Tonks wearily. _Bellatrix Lestrange must have back up._ She couldn't see any of her colleagues, just the edge of the staging about ten feet in front of her. She really hoped that they were doing better than she was. If they weren't Snape was in serious trouble. However fast he was, he would be a spot lit target on the catwalk; unable himself to see much beyond it.

"_Well we got no choice, all the girls and boys, Makin' all that noise . . ."_

_Alice bloody sodding Cooper _thought Tonks as the room vibrated to the bass from the sound system. Models inlittle black skirts, ties and artistically torn, white blouses came parading down the catwalk.

"_. . . can't salute ya, can't find a flag . . .'_"

_Another bloody punk revival, _thought Tonks disgustedly. _Even I don't . . ._ Her thoughts slowed. Snape was going to die, and there was nothing she could do about it. Already he was emerging from the shadows at the far end of the catwalk, robes swirling darkly around him. Disdainful of his audience, he stalked slowly to the edge of the stage where he crossed his arms gracefully and paused to consider the excruciatingly well cared for crowd beyond the footlights.

"_We got no principles and we got no innocence," _

As the corner of his mouth lifted in contempt, Snape turned his back. 'Aggravate her a bit,' Fortinbras had said.

He'd got the knack.

* * *

**Author's note:** lyrics are from 'School's Out'and belong to'Alice Cooper'. 


	5. Fabulous

'He-llo Nym-pha-do-ra.'

_Oh bugger _thought Tonks, _the bitch is feeling playful. _

Beside her, Bellatrix giggled. 'Shall I tell you what this is about Nym-pha-do-ra?' Tonks struggled against the _'Petrificus' _holding her. 'What, nothing to say? Oh, well. Never mind. I think I shall tell you anyway. I have found a use for muggles. Clever me! Of course some of them will need to be dead first.'

Dread pooled in Tonks' belly. Those Death Eaters who had avoided capture had spent several months living in the best muggle hotels, watching television and keeping room service busy; at least until an argument had brought their presence to the attention of Magical Law Enforcement. According to Rabastan Lestrange, someone had had the temerity to attempt to relieve Bellatrix of the remote control.

'All these pretty, pretty people,' mused Bellatrix. 'All so entirely useless. All occupying a position that should belong to us. Tomorrow, my sweet niece, we shall be at war and the weaker minded amongst us will have to reconsider their priorities. Fight with us or die. And then, when we have thinned the herd, magical shall rule over muggle as is only right and fitting.' Another girlish giggle. 'So you must decide, Nym-pha-do-ra, where your loyalties lie. Tonks felt fingers running down her face. 'Such a pretty thing, she is,' murmured Bellatrix. 'Despite the disgrace to the family that is your existence, we shall have need of overseers. I have decided to let you live. Go and get Snape.' Someone pushed past Tonks and began to force her way along the gap between the audience and the stage towards the black clad figure at the far end, glass glinting in her raised left hand.

_Whatever it is Porton Down want back, _thought Tonks. Not knowing that Bellatrix fully intended to use the biological warfare agent anyway, none of the Aurors would intervene for fear that the witch might drop it, which she might well do anyway. The muggle audience weren't responding at all well to being shoved.

'Ah yes, Snape,' whispered Bellatrix. 'How very, very foolish of him to walk into my trap.' As Tonks watched, the professor turned and swept down the stage towards them passing the witch who had been sent after him and forcing her to backtrack. When he reached the end he stopped, grasped his academic robes and folded the cloth around himself like a giant bat - a giant, disapproving bat who appeared to be staring right at them.

Bellatrix raised her wand. '_Crucio!' _

Immediately, Snape curled up into himself, toppling down the steps at the end of the stage to twitch and jerk, like a great black beetle, on the floor at Tonks' feet. As the _'Petrificus'_ wore off, the Auror could just move her fingers.

One of the muggles was doing rather more: a tall woman, bottle blond hair piled on top of her head, was attempting to remonstrate with Snape's pursuer. The witch slashed at her with her wand causing the woman to sit back down, dazedly considered her cut sleeve. Bellatrix lowered her wand and smiled as her minion straddled Snape, clearly intending to sit on him and use side-along apparition to take him away to where they could attend to the spy at their leisure.

'Let the traitor remember,' said Bellatrix, 'through all the long years of his dying, that none of those for whom he abandoned the Dark Lord's service ever made a move to save him.'

'You've been watching too many cartoons,' muttered Tonks. Bellatrix swung to face Tonks, madness in her eyes. 'You're ridiculous.' _Pathetic_._ A villain from a children's story,_ she thought sadly_ All the complexity that makes us human_ _worn away by Dark Magic. But it's real people who get hurt._ Tonks was remembering a summer evening at the Blue Badger, the warmth of Snape's arm around her, the sandalwood and cedar of his body mingling with the jasmine overgrowing the walls of the ancient courtyard.

It had been good.

Slowly, Bellatrix raised her wand.

Behind her, the blonde muggle appeared to come to a decision about her damaged attire and in one smooth movement, launched herself to her stillettoed feet, hoisted the champagne bottle from the ice bucket beside her as she rose, and slammed it into the back of her attacker's head as though naming a ship, quite hard enough to knock herself off balance; a motion she converted into a graceful return to her seat, somehow managing to catch the falling flask on the way down.

That was the signal for the light show to start. As curses flew in all directions, Tonks attempted to fall against Bellatrix. She saw red as the spell hit and then black.

'Tonks?'

'Tonks?'

Tonks sat up fast, twisted onto her elbow and parted with the very little she had eaten all day. Coming back, caviar and smoked salmon bruchetta tasted like the bottom of a pond. 'Water,' she muttered.

She was handed vintage champagne. 'Rinse and spit,' instructed Styles. Tonks looked at him incredulously. 'All I could find.'

Tonks rinsed and spat, sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the table that had appeared in their corner of backstage. 'Who's hurt?' she asked as Styles vanished the mess.

'At least three of them. None of us.' Tonks chugged the rest of the champagne. 'And I think,' Gates continued, 'that Snape might be about to get laid.'

Tonks fountained wine. 'What?'

'What a schnozzle!' supplied Styles.

'What size shoes d'you think he wears?' leered Gates.

Tonks turned to find Potter, Weasley, Granger and even Draco pink and choking with laughter.

'Join the dots, sweetie,' added Gates, sinking to his knees. 'Join . . . the . . . dots.' Tonks' eyes hunted for Snape and found him with his back against the wall, the blonde woman with the killer approach to Champaign bottles leaning against his chest.

'Auntie Patsy is nothing if not . . . direct,' gasped Draco.

'He can turn up the heat and stir my cauldron any day,' squeaked Gates from the floor.

Snape didn't look happy. As Patsy's hand slipped further south he began to look panicked. 'I can't believe he hasn't hexed her,' said Tonks.

'He's surrounded by Aurors,' said Draco. 'Give it another minute.' Tonks stared at her cousin and then put her glass down. Snape did not like being touched, even by those he trusted. Not that he really trusted anyone. She decided to intervene.

'Excuse me. Patsy?' Tonks had seen that look on wildlife programmes; the blonde woman was clearly disinclined to relinquish her prey. 'I can't fault your taste,' Tonks told her, 'but he's mine.'

Snape eyed Tonks warily and the blonde turned to face her. 'It's Ms. Stone and who the hell are you?'

'Nymphadora Tonks. Draco's cousin.'

'The Metamorphmagus?'

Tonks morphed to a younger and highly flattering version of Patsy. Styles and Draco had joined her 'Patsy, you were incredible,' gushed Draco.

'Absolutely fabulous' murmured Styles raising her hand and brushing his lips over her fingers while, from over by the table, Gates gazed admiringly.

Patsy smirked and straightened her hair. 'Yeah, I was. Wasn't I?'

-

* * *

Author's note: according to Wikipedia, Patsy's full name is Eurydice Colette Clytemnestra Dido Bathsheba Rabelais Patricia Cocteau Stone, something I feel may be indicative of her background. 

_**Absolutely Fabulous**_ (popularly referred to as "Ab Fab") is a British sitcom written by Jennifer Saunders and starring Saunders (as Edina) and Joanna Lumley (as Patsy) (and doesn't belong to me).


	6. Chapter 6

Styles slipped an arm around Patsy's shoulders. 'I am Adam Styles. Let me get you a drink,' he suggested, 'and then it might be best if you stayed with us. We can't have the Ministry trying to obliviate you.'

'No bloody point obliviating anybody here,' said Patsy. 'Most of them are used to seeing far, far stranger things.'

'Pardon?'

'Well, if they don't, they should think about changing their suppliers.'

'But wasn't that the wife of the President of . . .?

'So she should be well used to understanding bugger all and saying less.'

Tonks slipped her arm around Snape and started to pull him towards the fire doors. 'My wand,' he growled. Pulling free, he strode towards Fortinbras who saw him coming and held out his wand.

Snape took it without comment and veered back towards the exit only to stop when a voice wailed 'Draco!' Tonks turned to watch as Sandy collided with her young cousin.

'Oof! Sandy. What's up?'

Alexandrina clung to the wizard. 'They want to make me forget all about you.'

Something about the Ministry obliviators made Tonks think of Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. Draco tucked the young woman's head under his chin. 'Miss Urquehart is my fiancée,' he announced.

'Even so, you shouldn't have told a muggle about . . .,' began Tweedle-dee.

'Given my current legal situation, it would have been dishonest not to,' announced Draco, nobly.

'You are?' Tweedle-dee looked puzzled.

'Draco Malfoy,' supplied Granger.

The Obliviators blinked. Then they considered Malfoy and Granger and the Boy Who Lived and Arthur Weasley's youngest son and the Aurors.

'Perhaps you should take advice,' suggested Malfoy.

'Right.'

Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum departed.

'Fiancée? You cannot be serious?' said Granger.

'What? You've got to be kidding,' Sandy shuddered. 'It takes him all morning to manoeuvre his ego in and out of the bathroom. Don't get me wrong. I love Draco but I couldn't keep my hands off his throat. Sex, yes. Kids, maybe. Marriage?' A delicate wince, 'Centuries and centuries of inbreeding would be required and . . ..'

'I'll drive, shall I?' Draco stepped back and then headed off waving a set of car keys.

Tonks hadn't realised that it was possible to run and jump in high heels but Sandy could. 'Nooo! I just got it back. It took them six weeks to match the paint . . . .'

Styles smiled. 'Is Bollinger ok?'

'Always,' growled Patsy. Tonks wasn't sure where Ms. Stone had found the glass but she wasn't expecting Styles in early the following morning. Snape took a deep breath and continued towards the fire doors only to be intercepted.

'Well, here's your fee,' said the designer. 'A bit too much ad libbing, and try not to fall off the stage in future, but not too, too shabby. How do I get in touch with you?' Snape blinked at her. 'Ok, I'll get Draco to call you.' She wrapped Snape's hand around the envelope and slapped him on the back. Snape's jaw tightened.

'I'll take that, shall I,' said McLaggan, twitching the cheque from Snape's hand.

The fire-doors crashed open in front of Snape and Tonks followed him out into a grey walled, grey carpeted, downward sloping passage. 'Hold your horses.' Quite suddenly, and entirely without volition, she found herself sliding down the wall to sit on the ducting that ran, at floor level, along one side of the passage.

'Tonks?'

Dizzily, she allowed her head to sink between her knees. 'Since yesterday,' she said, 'I've had, and kept down, a bit of toast and some wine, and I've changed . . ..' She didn't know how often she had morphed but the demands on her metabolism had been excessive and now she was struggling to remain conscious. As roaring waves of darkness encroached she was aware of her head being pulled up and something hard and warm being forced between her lips. Liquid that tasted of nothing in particular flowed over her tongue.

'Swallow.' Tonks swallowed and Snape removed the little bottle from her mouth. He let her rest against him for a few seconds and then slipped onto one knee on the floor in front of her, his hands steadying her shoulders. 'Ok?'

'Ok.' Tonks got up, Snape rising with her, steadying her. 'I need to eat. Have dinner with me?'

Snape's eyes were calculating. 'What about Lupin?'

'Remus is in love with someone else.' Silence stretched like a chasm between them. 'He said . . . he said that it would be best for me; that he would only cause me grief.' Somehow she held the sob in the painful constriction in her throat.

'And if you leave with me, Potter will see to it that he finds out?'

Tonks shook her blonde head. 'I'll probably splinch myself if I try to apparate and I'm not going back into that madhouse. Ok, _you_ probably can apparate after _Cruciatus_, but you shouldn't. If I go into a restaurant on my own, looking like this, someone will try to pick me up and I really can't be bothered. I would appreciate it if you would let me buy you dinner. She took a deep breath. 'And if it gets back to him that I'm dating a . . .. Sorry Snape but yes, if it bothers him, so much the better.'

Snape considered. 'Very well.' A flick of his wand and he was wearing a round necked, collarless jacket, his academic soutane having shrunk into a scarf - both as black as ever - and the number of buttons having decreased only marginally. Tonks nodded and, without thinking, transfigured her clothes into the cream linen dress and long, midnight blue jacket that comprised her usual muggle formal wear. It would have to do.

She followed Snape out, through the fire doors at the bottom of the incline, and around the outside of the building to the taxi rank, where he helped her into the car and instructed the driver before climbing in beside her. 'Did you really trust us to protect you?' she found herself asking.

'_Muffliato!'_ Snape hid his wand under his left hand.

'Bellatrix thought that, rather than risk the biological agent being employed, we would just let them take you.'

'Would you?'

Tonks bit her lip. 'You shouldn't have been there at all - wouldn't have been if you hadn't decided to help us.'

'Which evades the question. Would _you_ have let them take me?'

'I couldn't move. _"Petrificus"_.'

Snape said nothing but continued to sit in the corner of the seat observing her. Tonks turned to watch the lights of the city as they passed outside the taxi's window.

Ten minutes travelling brought them to a busy street lined with bars and restaurants. Tonks got out and paid the driver who glanced at Snape. 'Foreign money only,' she told him. As the taxi pulled away, Tonks slipped her arm through Snape's. 'According to the best medical opinion available to the Ministry, the treatment for _Cruciatus_ is fluids, salt and bed-rest. Unofficially it's lager, curry, more lager, lager and something sweet. Ice-cream's good.'

Snape paused to consider the menu in the window of nearest restaurant and decided against it.

'Well?' demanded Tonks.

'Well what?'

'You've never been hit by _Cruciatus_ before?'

'Do you really wish me to discuss the Dark Lord's service with you?'

'Less paper work than the Ministry?' Tonks blinked and wondered where in hell that had come from. It felt as though she was drunk, right down to the peculiar stiffness of her upper lip. 'What was in that stuff, Snape?'

'You mentioned drinking wine?'

'One glass of Champaign.' Snape said nothing. 'Shit.' Tonks rubbed at her face. 'Sorry. It's just they're prosecuting Shunpike for wasting Ministry time. Granted, pretending to be a Death Eater was pretty stupid . . ..'

'But scarcely deserving of Azkaban,' Snape concluded. 'I would agree.' He noticed that she was shivering. 'This will do.' He guided her in through tall glass doors with art nouveau brass work into a room that was all candles, white linen and dark woodwork. It looked expensive. At the far end of the room Snape pulled out a chair for her and then sat down opposite. It was next to the kitchen door but, with his back to the wall, Snape could see the rest of the otherwise empty restaurant. 'My friend has a metabolic disorder and needs to eat,' he declared. 'Bring her some soup, some bread and some water. Bring me the menu and the wine list.'


	7. Chapter 7

Tonks could identify an object from the sound of its breaking. Quite often she could even tell why it had broken.

_That_, for example had been the plate glass at the front of the restaurant. She turned off the tap, wiped her hands down the side of her dress and slipped her wand from her sleeve. As she quickly discovered, there were anti-apparition wards in place. She considered her position. The doors to the toilets were on a side wall near the back of the restaurant. A swift exit via the kitchens seemed the most promising option. She very much doubted Bellatrix would be alone.

Snape was crouched behind an upturned table trading curses with a number of dark clothed figures. It was difficult to discern how many as the lighting now consisted of spurts and flashes of colour in the air and reflected from the crystalline floor. It was rather pretty in the way that phosphorescence is pretty when viewed from a sinking ship. Tonks took a deep breath, 'leviosa'd a table at the Death Eaters and threw herself across the floor and through the kitchen door.

Naturally there were steps.

Sprawled head first down them, Tonks considered, not for the first time, a change of career to something sane and sensible like, oh, dragon juggling. As Snape leapt over her to land and turn and seal the door behind him, she attempted to curl up and rolled painfully onto the floor.

'There's more of the bastards out back,' offered a voice lugubriously. Snape glanced out of the high window at the back of the kitchen and then, with a gesture, bricked over it and the door. An oppressive silence was broken only by the bubbling of a large stockpot.

'I'm truly sorry about this,' said Tonks, getting up and looking round.

From the other end of a long metal island of cupboards, sinks and food preparation areas five white clad muggles gazed back at her. There was the sound of tortured wood from the restaurant door and Tonks took cover behind one corner of the island as the door exploded and the new defensive brickwork began to crawl. Snape crouched behind the opposite corner of the island then she was ducking, blocking and sending hexes through the scorched woodwork of the doorway. It wasn't particularly difficult, all they had to do was keep fighting until Magical Law Enforcement arrived, usually a matter of minutes, and then a cutting hex took away half her wand.

Tonks seized a heavy iron skillet and waited.

The first person through the doorway took a flying skillet to the solar plexus and folded into an obstruction for those behind him, resulting in an untidy, laundry pile of black robes at the bottom of the steps. Tonks scooted to the far end of the kitchen just as Snape lobbed something into the stockpot.

There was a glop and a sound like the sharp indrawing of breath and then, with a prolonged hiss, most of the stock left the pot like some ghastly, greyish, liquid intercontinental ballistic missile only to immediately be deflected back down from piping, ductwork and the ceiling onto the heaving, black robed pile.

In the murky rain it was hard to see much but the clothes pile suddenly became more animated. There was a whimper and a scream and a hand emerged clutching something that might have resembled a lobster if lobsters were jewel encrusted and quite that big and aggressive. Tonks thought she could see bone. There was the odd, depressurisation feeling of anti-apparition wards lifting and, with a loud crack, much of the now yelping and cursing pile disappeared.

'Portable swamp,' remarked Snape. 'I confiscated it this morning.' Liquid was still surging queasily from the pot.

Eyes quite mad, Bellatrix rose from the ankle deep soup and aimed her wand at Snape just as a large blue octopus dropped from the ductwork overhead, its webbing covering her eyes. It seemed to have rather more than the usual number of tentacles and was now interesting itself in Bellatrix's wand. It also appeared to be strangling her. _'Incarcerous!' _said Snape but it was too late; she'd gone, as had the others. With another crack, Snape followed her and then Tonks was seized by the arms and hauled backwards onto the central island.

'Shark,' intoned the lugubrious chef.

It was a bit flat to be a shark but Tonks decided she wasn't going to call him on it. It looked more like a ray until it opened along one edge, like an envelope, revealing rows upon rows of teeth, to make very short work of a crab, notwithstanding that its shell was nearly half a metre across. 'What the fuck is going on?' asked the chef.

'Magic,' said Tonks. 'They're the followers of a dark wizard. He's dead but, unfortunately, they're still here and they're kind of annoyed about it.'

'You're a witch?'

'Yes.'

The muggles considered this. 'Are we going to remember anything about this?'

'No,' Tonks apologised. 'Sorry. You'll probably be told that there was a gas leak.'

'A lot of 'gas leaks' lately.'

'Yes. And I am sorry, but Accidental Magical Reversal are really good at clearing up. You won't even know that we were here.'

The lugubrious chef reached up for a bottle of Beaujolais from an overhead rack, opened it with a corkscrew that had appeared in his hand, handed the bottle to the man next to him and opened another bottle. Glasses were being passed from a tray near the dish washer and Tonks was given a glass of wine.

Probably unwise given how little she'd eaten but she didn't want to appear rude. 'Thanks.' She sipped the wine.

'No problem.'

Tonks drank her Beaujolais. The ray-shark continued its slow circuits of the island and the water continued to rise.

'Think that thing's edible?' asked the chef.

'Wouldn't recommend it,' said Tonks.

'So what's happened to your back up?'

'Probably still trying to sort things out at the exhibition centre.'

'Oh?'

'Bellatrix, the one with the octopus, was trying to use biological warfare.'

'Like that thing?' There was a rattling as the ray-shark continued worrying a cupboard door.

'Something she nicked from Porton Down.'

'Lovely,' said the chef. 'More wine?'

'Please.' Tonks held out her glass. 'That soup was really excellent,' she ventured.

'Just don't come back.'


	8. Sauce

Over in the corner, a small shoal of something or other with teeth was worrying what was left of a sack of potatoes. The last twenty minutes had been notable for the absence of any sort of reinforcements and the water was now within a foot of the top of the island. The scrawny sous-chef was volunteering, for the fifteenth time, to jump from the island to the steps and phone the fire brigade and Tonks was beginning to treat this as a serious option when, from the restaurant, she heard the sharp explosion of apparition and then the crunching of feet over broken glass. Transferring her wine to her left hand, she reached for a frying pan.

It had worked before. On the other hand she could only hear only one pair of feet. Snape appeared in the doorway, looking piratical, with an octopus on his shoulder.

'Tonks,' said Snape. 'I hadn't realised that you were quite such a party animal.'

'Catching up,' replied Tonks. 'In danger of losing my 'Drunkenness, Brutality and Unreasonable Behaviour' bonus.' _Oh yeah, _she thought, _I'm pissed._

'In that case perhaps I'd best leave you to it.'

'Snape!' Snape looked interested. Tonks indicated the rising water and voracious fauna. 'Would you mind?'

Snape's wand twitched. The water vanished and predators with feet retreated under cabinets. The ray-shark battled the cabinet door and the lugubrious chef dropped to the floor with a greedy gleam in his eye. Tonks toasted Snape with her glass. 'Ta. Did you catch them?'

'Catch but not capture. Unfortunately. And I'd recommend staying out of the flue system for a while.' He glanced over his shoulder. 'The cavalry.' Snape disapparated.

_Not pissed _thought Tonks some time later. _Rat-arsed. Blootered. Three sheets to the wind. _

Styles was attempting to take a statement from a waiter. 'Let me get this straight. The customer yelled "Get down!" You ducked behind the bar, just as the knights who say "Ni" broke in the windows, and then it all went beam me up Scotty?'

'Aye,' said the waiter. 'And then Cyrano stunned us.' The sound of sirens came closer. Clearly someone had dialled nine-nine-nine. 'Personally, I'd have given them the shrubbery.'

_Better tell Fortinbras, _thought Tonks. With extreme caution she made her way back down the steps into the kitchen just as one of the sous-chefs experimentally chucked a ham bone into the stock-pot which immediately began to rattle, leapt of the stove and erupted. Tonks closed her eyes as warm fluid hit her. She was aware of someone taking her arm, the world folding into far too small a space and then she was being pushed, naked, under a shower. The wriggling, slithering, scratching feeling was falling away with the warm water and then it happened.

'MEHITABEL FORTINBRAS I'LL KILL YOU!' Tonks dropped, folded foetally, to the ground.

'Up now,' soothed Fortinbras pulling her into a kneeling position. 'Drink this.' Through a blur of tears, Tonks could see that Fortinbras was proffering a milky-green potion.

'Tisit?'

'Analgesic.'

'Coul'n't have given it me before you cast . . .'

'Sorry Tonks. As Moody said, the critical element with that particular spell is that of surprise. After we'd chased him all over Edinburgh.'

'Don' blame 'im,' muttered Tonks.

'I'm sorry,' said Fortinbras. 'I know it stings but you were covered in an unknown biogenic substance.'

It hadn't even been Tonks' fault. With magical pseudo-sealife engendering in her underwear, Tonks had been grateful when Fortinbras had taken her arm and side-along apparated her to decontamination. The shower had been welcome. The cleansing charm had come as an extremely nasty surprise. 'Stings,' complained Tonks. 'Mucous membrane . . ..' She blew her nose, tried to wipe away the fluids streaming from her eyes and nose and swallowed the potion. 'Hate you. I really do.'

'I know love. Look, find the cadets, tell them to go home and then go home yourself. I'll sort out the restaurant. Those muggles were marinating that ray-shark thing in fizzy drink and making barbeque sauce. It's not _'Confundus'_ so Merlin only knows what sort of spell they've been hit with, poor bastards.' She disapparated. Over in the corner, the clothes bin containing Tonks contaminated clothing shivered and leaked violet _arthropoda_. Tonks stumbled up and turned the shower back on.

Half an hour later, feeling woozy but better, Tonks was looking for Potter and Weasley. They weren't filling reports. They weren't drinking coffee. The big status board, plainly on the fritz again, was insisting that they were at Hogwarts. 'Seen the sprogs?' she demanded of Shacklebolt.

'Hogwarts,' replied Kingsley. 'Snape took something from the scene of the crime.'

'Shit.'

Tonks ran.

She apparated to Hogwarts' anti-apparition perimeter directly from the broom closet, crossed the outer wards, and mounted her broom. At least this time she wouldn't lose House Points for flying in the corridors; just bits of her anatomy if she didn't manage to fly a bit straighter.

When she got there, the door to Snape's chambers stood open. 'Sir,' Potter was saying, 'I owe you and I don't want trouble. Just hand it over and we can go home. Please.'

She pushed open the door and stopped dead. In Snape's darkened sitting room a section of bookcase had been replaced by a large, iron lace and bevelled glass aquarium that seemed to recede into the wall behind. Moons of pale gold light, floating at various levels with in the tank, cast a gentle illumination on a bottom consisting of chunks of quartz and fine white sand. It was utterly beautiful. From an ancient looking amphora, wedged amongst the rocks, a single bluish tentacle extended slowly towards one of the light spheres. 'A pet?' Tonks asked in amazement.

'A study,' replied Snape. 'However, as the creature succeeded in sticking Bellatrix Lestrange's own wand up her nose, I see no reason why it should not be comfortable.'

'And that's what the Ministry want back?' queried Tonks.

'Could be dangerous,' supplied Weasley.

'Indeed?' said Snape. 'I am qualified to handle anything. I require formal authorisation only for the most dangerous of creatures.'

'Ok,' said Tonks. 'I'll confirm the authorisation. You two go and sort out a team. We'll need to arrest those responsible for its creation. Not the muggles, obviously. It's not a crime to make soup. What did you say fell into it?'

'A portable swamp I had confiscated from one of the second years.' Snape said mildly. 'The label indicated that it came from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.'

'Oh bugger,' muttered Ron.

'Right,' said Tonks. 'Obviously you won't want to be involved in your brothers' arrest but perhaps you know who their financial backers are?' If Potter and Weasley had actually eaten what the muggles were reported to have been cooking they couldn't have looked worse. She waited but a reply was not forthcoming.

'For fuck's sake,' blazed Tonks, 'you're Auror Cadets. Do you think that either one of you could possibly be bothered to engage whatever passes for a brain occasionally? Who sent you?

'Dawlish,' whispered Potter.

'Dawlish is not your friend,' stated Tonks. 'Dawlish does not like you. Or trust you. Dawlish thinks that you are a threat to the magical world and, to him, you may well be.' Tonks shut up. Rubbing her face, and knowing that she had said much too much, she continued more gently. 'Go home. It's normal to play tricks on newbies. That's all this was; right? You've just made fools of yourselves. Everyone does. It's not important. It's late so take tomorrow morning off and you can work on your reports over the weekend and show them to me before you submit them.' Tonks sighed. 'Potter. You did well earlier tonight. You both did.' Potter and Weasley continued to stare at the floor. 'Well?'

'Professor Snape was paid for that catwalk thing today,' said Potter, wretchedly.

'So?'

'Under the terms of his License of Release from Azkaban, Professor Snape is required to detail all personal expenditure and any money he has exceeding ten galleons must be handed over to the Ministry.' Both Potter and Weasley looked miserable. 'No action will be taken against him on this occasion but we've been told to collect the cheque.'

'McLaggan has it,' said Tonks.

'That's not bloody right,' burst out Weasley. 'If it wasn't for Professor Snape, Harry would be dead and the bastards would be reporting to Voldemort!'

'I know,' said Tonks. Weasley and Potter glanced at Snape's mask like countenance, and then trailed, very quietly, out of the door. 'I didn't know,' said Tonks, 'and they're right.' As they closed the door behind them, Tonks turned to the sound of a slow hand clap from behind her.

-

* * *

The 'Knights Who Say Ni' are from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. They contrive to be both scary and ridiculous and demand a shrubbery.

'Beam me up Scotty' is from 'Star Trek' and denotes a situation from which those involved would very much like to depart – something not achievable by conventional means.

'Cyrano' is Cyrano de Bergerac, the eponymous hero of a play by Rostand. 'Roxanne', a film with Daryl Hannah and Steve Martin was an adaptation of the play in which the big nosed duellist, with a winning way with words, gets the girl.

The Barbeque Sauce is courtesy of 'excessivelyperky'. (Crustacia may contain traces of Vogonity).

999 is the number for the Emergency Services in the UK.


	9. Chapter 9

'I really shouldn't have said that,' muttered Tonks.

Snape looked amused. 'So,' he murmured, 'how did you end up in the soup?'

'What?'

There was something almost Dementor-like about that glide. 'I hear that most Aurors keep their best uniforms at the Ministry against the possibility of accident and having to face the music.' He stopped beside her. 'I suppose it is not altogether unreasonable to wish to at least appear competent.'

_Git _thought Tonks. Her skin flared as his fingers ran down her arm. _Dammit, that's really not fair. _She'd been half expecting some sort of emotional rebound from her break-up with Remus but reacting like this to Snape, of all people, argued extreme spite on the part of Fate.

'You are wearing new robes.' Snape continued leaning in. 'You smell of Ministry soap and . . .' he turned her hand palm upwards, fingertips sliding under the webs and into the gaps between her fingers, 'your skin is wrinkled, implying prolonged immersion.' She found herself listening to his voice and paying very little attention to the words. 'This would suggest that you have been exposed to something unpleasant and, since it can be scarcely more than an hour since I last saw you, . . ..'

Tonks forced herself to shake her hand free; her fingers tingling. 'Ok, Sherlock,' she muttered.

'Elementary, my dear Tonks.'

As he walked away, Tonks wondered if Snape had been angry at all. 'One of the sous-chefs chucked a ham bone into the swamp-soup,' she explained. 'Just to see what happened. What happened was it leapt off the stove and exploded.'

With a gesture Snape lit candles around the room, before lifting one of a number of parchments from a rather battered and worn table of some dark coloured wood. 'Ah, the scientific method,' he mused, transfiguring the parchment into a red-splattered chair. 'Well. Sit down.' A plate of food together with a glass of water appeared on the table. 'Pie. Your favourite.'

The House-Elves at Hogwarts took the idea of 'comfort food' to the limits and then pushed it, screaming, over the edge and the pie had, indeed, been her favourite. 'How did you know?'

'Three helpings?' Snape settled into a chair opposite her and unrolled another pale sheet of vellum to reveal something that looked as though it might have been produced by a number of ink dipped spiders under the influence of _'Tantallegra'_. If I didn't know better, I might think that you were greedy.'

Tonks sat down and picked up a fork. 'Why was Bel Fortinbras so sure you'd help?' she asked.

'Because, having been present, should things have gone wrong, I would have found myself answering questions with most of those who might be inclined to actually listen to the answers unable to do so.'

He was right, as usual. With most of the Aurors who had been in the Order of the Phoenix out of the way it would be all too easy to scapegoat Snape. Tonks took a bite of her dinner. She closed her eyes for a moment and the memory of that rather odd little scene rose into her mind. 'What was it with Bel, anyway? Was she making a pass at you?'

'She does that.'

Tonks grinned. 'Did you ever think to take her up on it?

A sharp glance. 'I find myself disinclined to be anyone's dirty little secret.'

'But . . .' Tonks shut up and continued eating. She needed something neutral to talk about. 'So,' she hazarded, 'a meeting of the Board of Governors?'

Snape looked up. 'Actually, yes.'

'What's she after?'

'I beg your pardon?' He had gone back to scrawling a verbal mauling across what had to be some poor sod's attempt at an essay.

Tonks finished chewing and swallowed. "If McGonagall's got 'Persuasion Pie" on the menu, watch out, she's after something. We Aurors know this.'

'Ah.' Snape sketched a red box around the final offending paragraph and added 'See me' in spiky, red letters.

'Something to do with the Wizengamot?'

Snape said nothing and Tonks finished her dinner. 'It's wrong,' she began. 'You should demand a proper trial.'

'Ever been to Azkaban?'

Tonks had been to Azkaban.

One year into her training, she and her two year mates had taken a Portkey from the holding area in the Ministry basement to the smaller of the pair of volcanic islands that comprised the prison of Azkaban. They had found themselves on what was little more than a stump of basalt protruding from grey and turbulent water. At the top of a steep boat slip hunched the grey hulk of a capstan and, around it, an endless loop of chain stretched out from the landing point towards the dark fortress of Azkaban itself.

As they approached the capstan it had begun to turn, clunking as it pulled in and payed out chain. There was a thump, the rotation slowed and the sound changed as a metal boat was pulled out of the water and up the slip, water pouring from holes in the boat's bottom as it rose. The Auror Cadets had waited as the boat drained, holes closing over as the surface fell, until just a small pool remained slopping at the lowest end. It was a measure of their state of mind that none of them thought to _'evanesco_' it and so they would all end up with wet robes. Climbing into the boat had been one of the hardest things Tonks had ever done. With a shudder, she forced herself back to the present. 'I've been to Azkaban,' she said.

'Just before you get there, the boat stops,' said Snape.

Tonks remembered that too.

It had felt as though all the generations of misery that were Azkaban has somehow been concentrated by the structure itself and focussed onto that sullenly heaving patch of water, almost black in the shadow of the island. The experience had been all but intolerable. Oddly, it had been Gates, the Gryffindor that they had had to prevent from attempting to jump out of the boat and trying to swim back. Or perhaps not. At least, as he'd explained afterwards, he'd have been doing something. Of course the prisoners wore heavy iron fetters and, for them, swimming would never be an option. Even so, some tried.

'Would you have any idea,' Snape enquired, 'of the numbers of those failing to complete their journey?'

'I imagine I could find out.'

'And those who don't jump but still don't arrive?'

'What?' Tonks blinked. 'Just what are you implying?'

'Extrajudicial execution of the inconvenient,' said Snape softly, continuing to correct schoolwork.

'Bollocks!' Tonks stood and then sat down again suddenly as the world swayed around her and then she was sprawled facedown over the table with Snape beside her, shaking her.

'Tonks! Wake up.'

This, thought Tonks, was worse than the time she'd gone drinking Scrumpy with her muggle cousins. It was similar though. She'd felt fine until she tried to stand up.

'Tonks, have you taken anything other than the potion I gave you?'

'Some green glop. Tasted like rancid broccoli and toothpaste.'

'Golpalott's Green,' said Snape disgustedly. 'Wonderful. Weren't you warned to go directly to bed?' He was trying to get her to stand up but her legs were refusing to work.

'Can't I just sleep on your sofa?' she begged.

'No.'

Tonks slipped bonelessly down onto the floor. 'Dammit,' breathed Snape and then levitated her. Rocking gently in midair, she waved goodnight to the octopus and closed her eyes.


	10. Sweet home, suburbia

Tonks awoke, quite suddenly, to the unpleasant and deeply unsettling experience of being apparated by someone else and, as she had no idea who, or why, or where, and someone was holding her, she hit him. At least, she tried to. Sprawling on flagstones, to her relief, she found her wand in her hand and opened her eyes to see a tall figure, dark under the streetlight.

She knew this crescent of town houses; recognised the small park opposite, the black painted, pointy railings and the steps that led to her parents' front door. Relief plunged into dismay. _You don't let them know where your family liv_e. She met Snape's eyes and saw something that might have been disappointment before memory caught up. The former Death Eater climbed the steps, rang the bell and then descended to stand over her. 'Goodnight Miss Tonks.'

'Help m'up.' She stuck up a hand. For a moment she though he'd leave her there but he didn't. Her mother, Andromeda, opened the door to see her only daughter clinging onto her erstwhile teacher's neck. 'Thanks fo' bringin' me home; 'ppreciate it,' said Tonks.

'Is some explanation going to be forthcoming?' demanded Andromeda.

'I could scarcely return her to the Ministry in this condition,' replied Snape.

'And what condition would that be?'

'Golpalott's "Green". Apparently she was told to go home.'

'Told to go home,' Tonks confirmed. 'S'all my fault.'

'Tell me when it isn't,' sighed Andromeda. 'Ok, bring her in.'

Snape's arm under her shoulders, Tonks staggered up the steps and into the house. 'Howja know where . . ?' she began.

'A Metamorphmagus would have been very useful to the Dark Lord,' said Snape.

'Why do you think you spent those summers with Granny and Granddad Tonks?' came her mother's voice as the door closed behind them.

It made sense. Andromeda had never got on with her muggle mother in law who regarded her with deepest suspicion. The formal courtesy between them had always possessed diamond clad, serrated edges. On the other hand, Granny Tonks doted upon her granddaughter and had encouraged her to run wild with her cousins in long summers of beach parties, concerts and mugglish general mayhem that never reached the ears of her aristocratic mother.

Tonks was particularly glad that Andromeda hadn't heard about the scrumpy incident. She still had vivid memories of a rainy night on the Summerset levels, somewhere near Glastonbury Tor, throwing up into a ditch while her cousins argued about just how she had managed to get that far gone on a mere half a pint of scrumpy. 'Witchcraft' Tonks could have told them but didn't. Granny Tonks had just said 'Oh dear. Bedtime,' and tucked her into bed in the little attic room that had once been her father's.

Snape had begun to drag her up the stairs. Tonks concentrated. An idea was worming its way to the forefront of her consciousness. 'Snape,' she said, having finally captured the thought, 'you and me . . . should get married. Stop them 'rresting you without charge. They don' do that . . . Auror's families. Scared of Aurors being . . . adversely . . . influenced by . . . Ministry.

'Tonks,' drawled Snape. 'You are not drunk and in the morning you will remember every detail of this evening with perfect clarity so I suggest that you shut up.'

'I go out . . . risk my life f' people . . . dislike . . . despise me,' grumbled Tonks as she ascended the staircase. 'Tell me,' she stopped climbing and turned to Snape, 'why wouldn't I do this . . . f' you?'

'Does that mean you've broken up with the werewolf, dear?' interrupted Andromeda.

Tonks had forgotten that her mother was there. 'Remus broke up with me,' she said. Andromeda must have had this staircase extended, Tonks decided. She didn't remember it having nearly so many steps or being quite so high.

'Good,' said Andromeda. 'He was turning you into a mouse.'

'He was not!' Tonks twisted round and only Snape's grip stopped her falling back down the stairs. 'Remusis . . . sweet and kind and . . .'

'Engaged to someone else,' supplied Snape, helpfully.

'You were never happy with him,' said her mother and then Tonks had to concentrate on negotiating the top of the staircase and walking on a flat surface instead.

Eventually the door to her bedroom appeared and Tonks stood in the doorway blinking. 'Mum,' she enquired, 'why's my bedroom gone green? Geometric shapes in sludgy greens and browns cruised the walls. She'd been feeling pissed but this was awful and the purple patterned rug was . . . worse. Tonks felt seasick.

'My guest room is green,' said Andromeda. 'You moved out several years ago; remember? What happened to your cottage in Hogsmeade?'

''S difficult for werewolves to get decent 'ccommodation.'

'Right,' said Andromeda. 'Professor Snape, thank you for bringing my daughter home. I'll only be a moment.' Shutting the bedroom door, she drew her wand. Twenty seconds later Tonks clothes were clean and in the wardrobe and she herself was sinking into fragrant pillows. Gentle fingers brushed her hair. 'Were you serious about Snape, darling?'

'Course,' muttered Tonks, falling asleep to the scent of flowers as her mother kissed her goodnight.

-

She awoke to the sound of birdsong, the smell of lilac and the soft feel of her childhood home. Sighing, Tonks opened her eyes to evil greens and browns and memory struck like a ton of gravity assisted masonry. She leaned out of bed and checked.

Yup. God-awful purple carpet.

It had been real.

She had proposed to Snape last night. That, in itself, was quite bad enough without her having done so in front of her mother. Tonks wondered if being told to shut up could reasonably be construed as refusal. She was quite prepared to do whatever might be necessary to ensure that the stroppy git did not fetch up in the dark waters off Azkaban. A marriage could always be annulled after Severus Snape had had his day in court. It would still be as well to get her arse downstairs, right now, and ensure that Andromeda was not calling in the caterers.

She found her parents in the kitchen reading the Saturday newspapers and eating breakfast. 'Hello Daddy.' From behind his chair, she hugged her father, kissed the top of his head, stole his toast and sat down.

'Good morning, sweetheart.' Her father took another slice of toast and began to apply butter and marmalade. Even if last night had been regrettable and her bedroom resembled an unfortunate incident in a sewage farm, it was good to be home.

'Morning mum.'

'Good morning, Nymphadora.' Her mother finished pouring her a cup of tea. 'Darling, last night we had a visit from your aunt Narcissa,' she began. 'What do you know about Alexandrina Urquhart?'

'What?' Tonks bolted up from the table. 'Is she alright? Dammit, Sandy's a nice kid. She only claimed to be engaged to Draco in order to avoid obliviation.'

'Sit down and drink your tea dear,' soothed Andromeda. 'Don't look so worried. Whilst it is true that Narcissa was initially in favour of something involving an unforgivable and the front end of an omnibus, Ted and Severus had a word with her.'

'And that helped?' Tonks took a deep breath and sat down.

Ted closed his newspaper and opened it at the next page. 'I floated the idea that 'Toujours Pur' referred to purity of spirit. Given that Narcissa is attempting to increase her influence in certain quarters, a civilised and well conducted affair with an attractive and open minded muggle might not do young Malfoy's reputation any harm at all.'

'Quite,' said Andromeda. 'Severus also pointed out that given the currency of some quite unfounded, of course, but nonetheless persistent rumours regarding the Malfoy bloodline, a little half-blood witch or wizard on the wrong side of the blanket might not be entirely disadvantageous either.'

'Pardon?'

'Some of the older families could even consider an established muggle mistress a benefit,' continued Andromeda, serenely.

'What?' spluttered Tonks. 'Come on. How would you feel if daddy . . .'

Andromeda's eyes twinkled. 'Well that wasn't ever going to happen.'

'Your mum slipped me a love potion,' announced Ted from behind the paper.

'What?'

'Being a Muggleborn and an Unspeakable, Ted was totally unacceptable to the Blacks and very, very difficult to get at. If I married him, I'd never have to talk to my lovely family again. Well, obviously I'd miss Narcissa but, anyway, despite Ted's intellect, he was in Hufflepuff, so he'd probably be fairly reasonable about it once the potion wore off, so he was the obvious choice. Not to mention his being an utter fox,' Andromeda finished smugly.

Tonks sat and stared. 'And what did happen when the potion wore off?' she asked her mother.

'Ah, well. I'm afraid I did get that bit wrong.'

'It didn't wear off,' said Ted. 'Something special she found in the Black Family Library. No known antidote either.'

'Mother, have you any idea how illegal that is?' demanded Tonks.

'Theoretically, yes, I suppose it was.' Andromeda sipped her tea. 'But, by the time the Ministry found, out I was expecting you; so sending me to Azkaban wasn't an option. They had to let me off with a warning.'

'Dad?'

Ted Tonks shrugged. 'It could've been worse.'


	11. Chapter 11

Don't get me wrong,' said Mehitabel Fortinbras, 'It's not that I don't like men. I do like men. Some of my best friends are men. It is, however, a girl's night out and you are not girls.'

Tonks took another swig of her beer and sank further back onto the bench to consider her colleagues, all of them connoisseurs of the 'frank exchange of views', currently enjoying the debate that had been going strong when she arrived at the 'Leaky Cauldron' and was finally, it seemed, working towards some sort of climax. While Tonks was feeling a bit fuzzy from the warmth and the beer, the others had got off work a couple of hours before she had and they had a head start. It didn't seem to have made any of them less intransigent.

'How are we not girls?' demanded Shacklebolt, outraged. 'We've got all the bits!'

Kingsly Shacklebolt was back to being a plump, and now rather pale and vampy, brunette. While the others seemed to be experiencing some difficulties with their Polyjuice assisted femininity, he was having no trouble at all with the _very _high heels. Or keeping the cleavage under control. Tonks was just the least bit inclined to feel pissed off about that as, she suspected, were several of her female colleagues.

'Being a girl isn't just about having girly bits,' said Louisa Longbottom. 'It's about doing girly things.'

'For the last time, woman, I am not having my legs waxed,' boomed Moody before shutting up suddenly. Glancing around Tonks could see that that appeared to be the consensus amongst the would be interlopers. Gates, Styles, Moody, Shacklebolt and a small woman with hair like a pale chrysanthemum, whom Tonks had as yet failed to identify, nodded.

'But it's something women do,' suggested Louisa.

'Bollocks to that,' said Moody. 'I'm not that kind of girl.'

'Apropos of bollocks,' put in Fortinbras, 'you are not any kind of girl. You're cheating.'

Tonks considered Moody's dark brown skin and braided hair with gold snake's heads at the plaits' ends. Comfortably over six foot and built like a lumberjack, Moody looked like a scary, sexy goddess and Tonks was prepared to bet that the old Auror was, indeed, cheating but, by now on her third pint, could not shake the feeling that she was missing the point.

'Give it five minutes and you will try to take over,' said Fortinbras. 'And then you'll try to start trouble.' She raised her hand to forestall interruption. 'I'm not saying I blame you. After all, it's not your fault that you're chromosomally challenged but you are not coming with us.'

'Do you think,' suggested Tonks, 'that we could all stop arguing and go and find something bad-tempered with lots and lots of teeth to introduce to McLaggan?'

Fortinbras took a deep breath while those of a formerly 'Y' inclination sniggered. 'Tonks,' she said, 'with regard to Mr. Lachlan McLaggan; there's a bit of a queue. Just why do you think you should get preferential treatment?'

'That stake-out we did last week . . .' began Tonks.

'Down at the docks?' asked Fortinbras.

'That one,' Tonks confirmed. Wind-driven grit and dust from a fertilizer cargo had stopped only for intervals of rain which gave the stinging muck something to stick to. Gates, Styles and herself had been pretending to repair a crane. Styles had undone the wrong nut and hydraulic fluid had added to the mess. None of them had dared to use magic for fear of tipping off their quarry so, when Tonks had slipped and fallen off the crane and into the worst of it, the others had sent her to clean herself up and get coffee.

'How was that McLaggan's fault?' asked Fortinbras.

That bit wasn't,' explained Tonks. 'McLaggan asked if I wanted to claim for the coffee.'

'And you signed to say that you were buying coffee and hence not working?' suggested Fortinbras. Tonks nodded. 'So. Five hours work: upped to a full shift at triple time becomes two hours work following on from the previous shift at no extra payment, followed by time off. Did he manage to switch the rest of the time?'

'Yes,' said Tonks. I've an assessment next month which would have been the Ministry's time. Instead, it will happen in the three hours of my own time that the bastard's exchanged for the other three hours of being covered in . . .'

'McLaggan is not your friend,' stated Moody. 'McLaggan does not like you and you were a bloody fool to think otherwise. Vigilance, girl!'

'Sorry Tonks,' said Fortinbras. 'As far as McLaggan's concerned, you're not even on the short list.'

'But . . .'

'He's the only person able to reconcile the accounts. Theory is someone fiddling the books cast a curse so that only one person at a time can total them correctly. Just at the moment that's McLaggan and since no-one gets paid until they are reconciled and no-one's keen to take over . . .' Fortinbras trailed off regretfully.

Let me get this straight,' said Moody, returning to the argument at hand. 'Surely you can't be claiming that starting trouble is entirely a woman's prerogative?'

'By which you are admitting that you are not, in fact, a woman?' queried Fortinbras.

'No. By which we are attempting to determine what exactly are the grounds for your refusal to see sense.' On the table, in a beer glass, Moody's eye was now rotating steadily. 'So,' he enquired cunningly, 'are you, in fact, claiming that starting trouble is entirely a woman's prerogative?'

'I am claiming,' replied Fortinbras in a dignified manner, 'that, whatever it is we choose to start, it is entirely within _our _prerogative to start it. It is, after all, a girls' night out.'

'And what are we then?' demanded Gates.

Louisa giggled. 'I think we've addressed that.'

Tonks had had enough. 'Excuse me, I need to go somewhere.' Squeezing past her friends she headed for the Ladies' toilets. That was the trouble with drinking pints.

And that was the trouble with drinking with Aurors. There was bound to be an argument, or, given the tendency of any group of experts to produce more opinions than there are persons present, several arguments, usually leading to differences of opinion over whose argument had precedence, frequently interspersed with full and frank discussions regarding authority to arbitrate and occasionally giving rise to opportunities to learn new and highly unusual hexes. 'Bloody vole-pit,' muttered Tonks, splashing cold water on her face. If nothing interesting was going to happen, she might as well go home.

In the sudden draft, as of a door being opened, Tonks groped for the towel. It was handed to her. 'Ta,' she said, drying her face in a leisurely manner before opening her eyes to discover that one wall was missing. In its place stood a large, shaggy horse. At the other end of the reigns was a large, shaggy Death Eater. 'Stop that now,' he pleaded as the horse took a casual bite at his sleeve. In the resulting struggle, the Death Eater's mask was dislodged and fell off to skitter away across the tiles.

'Hello Goyle,' said Tonks, drawing her wand.

'Er, hello Ms. Tonks.'

'_Expelliamus!'_

Tonks' wand stung as it was ripped from her fingers.

'Hello Nymphadora,' said Bellatrix Lestrange. _'Stupefy!'_

_-_

* * *

Author's notes:

I don't know who first designated fanfictionnet 'the Vole-pit' but it's such a lovely expression that I've borrowed it for Tonks to describe her colleagues;


	12. Chapter 12

She wondered why she was trying to sleep on such a hard pillow.

And why it seemed to be raining.

Tonks opened her eyes to discover that it was, in fact, raining and that she was lying in a gutter. When she tried to get up she discovered that her hands were tied. 'Here, let me help,' rumbled behind her and she was half lifted, half dragged and propped, very gently, against a wall in a position that wasn't quite uncomfortable.

'What's happening Goyle?' she whispered. She had to find an ally fast and, even in the dim, fugitive light from buildings surrounding the tiny courtyard, she could tell that Gregory Goyle wasn't happy. 'Why the horse?' She could guess, but if she could get Goyle to talk to her that would help.

Goyle seemed to think for a moment before deciding that there could be no harm in answering the question. 'The toilets at the "Cauldron" used to be stables. Hundreds of years ago there was a spell to open the doors for horses. When they took it away it left a sort of crack in the wards.'

'Clever.'

Goyle glanced to the side, warning Tonks, but it was too late; her awakening had been noticed. Goyle dragged her to her feet. 'She's awake,' he announced loudly to the dishevelled gang of hooded figures dragging their way through puddles where the courtyard emptied, gurgling, into Knockturn Ally.

'Hello Dora, darling,' trilled Bellatrix.

'Hello Auntie Bella,' sighed Tonks. 'What is it this time?'

'Don't be petulant, child. It doesn't suit.' She patted Tonks' cheek. 'Now. I'm here to make you an offer. With a little effort you could do well in my new organisation.'

'Bella, I'm a half-blood.'

Bellatrix gave a low laugh that made Tonks hair stand on end. 'Unfortunately, that is true but you are also a Metamorphmagus. For those who are exceptional, exceptions must be made.'

_Play along with her _thought Tonks. 'What would I gain from it?'

'What would you gain from it? Your life? And if you do well and behave nicely enough, perhaps marriage to a pure-blood. Now dear, don't look so surprised. It happens, even in some of the better families, and we're moving to the colonies where I daresay people are less fussy. Your grandchildren would be quite respectable. Goyle. You left the horse's head in the lavatory? Or should I say the heads? A head in the heads. Isn't that funny? Well did you?

'Yes,' muttered Goyle, shiftily.

'Good. What did you do with the rest of it?'

'Er. . '

'Goyle, you left the whole horse in the lavatory, didn't you?'

'Yes,' admitted Goyle.

'Why? When I told you to leave just the head?'

'Well, if the head's supposed to be scary, won't the whole horse be better?' suggested Goyle hopefully. 'It can kick and . . . '

'"_Crucio!" _Of course, they mightn't be terribly bright.'

It took Tonks a moment to realise that it was her own grandchildren that Bellatrix was referring to and her proposed husband who was now thrashing around in the filth at their feet. 'Stop that!' she snapped.

'Good girl.' Bellatrix lifted the spell. 'See,' she said, toeing the muddy, shaking man at her feet. 'You and Nymphadora.' For a moment Tonks' and Goyle's shocked eyes met. 'Get up and feed her this,' Bellatrix continued blithely.

Goyle stumbled up and stood swaying. 'What is it?'

'Veritaserum. Hurt her if you have to.'

Unnoticed by Bellatrix, a look of panic passed over Goyle's face, quickly buried under an expression of extreme stupidity. 'How? I can't do _"Cruciatus"_.'

'You really are that thick aren't you? Break something. Rip bits off her.'

Goyle stepped heavily behind Tonks who flinched as enormous hands settled on her shoulders. 'I can't do that to my girlfriend,' he protested. 'That would be wrong.'

'No.' Bellatrix considered. 'No. You're quite right. Never mind. To make up, how about if I let you can practice _"Cruciatus" _on Snape later?' Tonks felt Goyle stiffen. Abrasive as the Head of Slytherin was, he inspired loyalty in those under his care. Nor was that loyalty undeserved; he had ensured that, when the trap had finally been sprung on Voldemort, the younger Death Eaters had been deep in a muggle crowd, well inside anti-apparition barriers, busy trying to kidnap the muggle Prime Minister from a rock concert. It had been all over before they had moved fifty yards. As Dark Marks disappeared from their arms, a decision had been reached to stay and listen to the music. 'Dora,' said Bellatrix, 'take the potion or I'll make you take it.'

Tonks took the potion. As the initial numbness faded, Tonks became fascinated by raindrops, falling like bullets, in the wand light and bouncing off her head which felt as if it was growing lighter, swelling and pulling her up like a balloon until she could scarcely feel the ground underfoot. She was sure that her neck was stretching like a serpent and she was reminded of a picture from an old children's book. _Curiouser and curiouser,_ she thought and giggled.

'So, how d'you feel?' Bellatrix asked sweetly.

'Wonderful,' said Tonks, wondering if she was turning into a serpent and, if so, if she could possibly manage to bite Bellatrix. The way the walls were undulating, and the cobblestones and everything on them were sliding back and forth in waves, it would be extremely difficult, she decided. The Death Eaters seemed mysteriously unperturbed by the odd motion; moving to and fro like that, she was sure that she'd have been seasick.

'And will you join me?' asked Bellatrix.

'Of course not.'

Bellatrix hissed with annoyance. 'Look after her Goyle,' she said, turning to her minions. Tonks closed her eyes and Goyle returned her to her seat against the wall, which was nice of him, as she couldn't have remained standing up on her own. Quite surprised not to find herself rolling around in agony in the muck, she curled herself up and waited for normality to resume.

After a while Tonks felt a tug at her hair and looked up to see Bellatrix pushing something pink into an envelope and then looked down again fast, before the ground came up and hit her. Tonks loathed Veritaserum, even when properly aged. With the freshly brewed potion, while the visual effects were over fairly quickly, brief interludes of high only exacerbated the intervening stretches of abyssal, nerve grinding low. Bellatrix crouched down beside her, seized Tonks' chin, forced her face up to meet her own and smiled. 'We've sent dear Severus a letter and a Portkey: some of your hair.'

'He won't fall for it.'

'Probably not. So then we'll send him other things. Fingers first, I think.'

'Aren't you forgetting I'm an Auror?' Tonks bit tongue. Being Aurors hadn't helped the Longbottoms.

'An Auror with a letch for an oily, ugly, friendless pauper, who's this far,' Bellatrix gestured, 'from final incarceration in Azkaban. Oh yes, I heard all about your proposing to him from 'Cissa. Amazing what she'll do to protect that gutless whelp of hers; but of course she can't have any more.' She tapped her teeth with her fingernails. 'I do wonder, though, what he could have given you. It would need to be less obvious and easily treated than _Amortentia_. A pity to lose such skills, really, but the man's impossible. And I don't know how many times I've told him to clean himself up, and wash his hair.' She huffed. 'Water of a duck's back; and now he has the gall to try for my niece.'

Bellatrix paused and an ugly light came into her eyes. 'You know I do believe I think he'll come. I wondered how Andy discovered the Dark Lord's interest in you. That sneaking worm must have told her. I was our master's favourite because I'd promised him a Metamorphmagus and Snivellus didn't like that. He'd do anything to make me look bad. And then, a stroke of luck for him, you go and grow up and become an Auror. A life debt would explain why Andy hasn't struck the filthy little upstart down as he deserves. You, my dear, are valuable to him. I think he'll try to rescue you.' She smiled. 'And if he doesn't, well then, at least he'll remember.'

'Remember what?' asked Tonks, Veritaserum overriding nausea and fear.

'That I could always take his ickle treasures away from him.' For a moment a look of fond recollection softened the older woman's features. 'The look on his witty bitty face when I gave them back, broken.'


	13. Chapter 13

_. . . in darkness, stars come and go to a chanting that Tonks is only properly aware of when it stops; her eyes are hot iron, lids fused shut; trying, with all she has, she can barely crack them open; red resolves itself into a palm and long fingers and a dark river of blood trickling into a narrow sleeve and her eyes slam closed again; she is lying in an alley with her head on Snape's lap. . . _

'_That's a useful spell,' says Moody . . . _

_. . . points of light are the harness of the horse held by a woman in strange trousers berating Goyle . . . ('that's a useful spell,' says Moody) . . . flashing silver becomes a pair of glittering sandals, grasped in a large hand; the blue of Moody's gown marches his mad eye; his great, hairy leg sticks out the side . . ._

_. . . tangled brightness unravels into the skein of a river, far away, in the valley bottom; her cousins are amused until laughter and colour fade leaving only darkness and a rope of twisting light travelling fast toward her; ('that's a useful spell,') ; three twins brandish water pistols (that's a useful . . .); rope explodes into shining raindrops . . . _

_. . . she tries to curl up; perhaps the horse has trampled her: she hurts . . ._

Tonks awoke.

Sore, sweating and shivering, she opened her eyes.

Saint Mungo's, going by the faded eu-de-nil of upper walls and ceiling. The colour was supposed to calm the patients. Mostly it didn't. Fear rolled her out of bed and adrenaline got her hands between her face and the chequer tiled floor. A door opened and a mediwizard came in. 'Now . . . ,' he consulted her medical notes from the foot of the bed, '. . . _Nymphadora_, I don't believe that we should be getting up out of bed just yet.'

'Nrghmph,' said Tonks, using the high bed frame to haul herself up.

'In you get,' soothed the mediwizard, _leviosa-_ing her into the air, pulling back the covers and dropping her, sprawling, onto the bed. He pulled the covers back over her and treated her to a professional smile. 'There now,' he continued, 'isn't that . . .'

Tonks hand, as if of its own volition, had grasped him by his robes. 'Wand and clothes before I rip your head off.'

She let go but the man was undismayed. 'And how will you do that without your wand?' he inquired, rearranging his attire.

'Metamorphmagus.'

That had an effect: the mediwizard didn't quite match the paintwork. 'I'll call the Auror Office,' he stumbled and was gone.

Tonks got up, briefly considered the tent-like floral nightie that Saint Mungo's had provided, and reached for her notes. Purple squiggles tried to crawl off the edge of the page; with a hand over one eye she could make out some of it. That word was definitely 'concussion' and that looked like 'gastric lavage'. Dropping the notes and not letting go of the wall, she followed the wizard out of the door and along the corridor to the floor's reception desk. The resident mediwitch took one look at her and handed over a cardboard box. Tonks opened it and took out her wand and a new set of robes. 'My old ones?' she enquired. The woman shook her head and made an oddly intricate gesture with her wand that replaced the nightie with the robes.

Now properly dressed, Tonks tried to collect herself. The last thing she could remember was an argument in the 'Leaky Cauldron'. Perhaps she'd been hit with a stray hex? She had no idea where the flashing silver rope had come from.

'Gastric lavage', her notes had said: she'd had her stomach pumped. The terrifying thought intruded that it had been a 'Girls' Night Out'. The idea that her condition might be her own fault almost tripped her. 'Probably not a good idea to apparate,' suggested the mediwitch.

Tonks nodded and steered herself towards the floo. She grabbed a handful of floo powder from the box which fell and exploded at her feet. 'Em-oh-em,' she gasped, lurching forward. Green spinning ended with her falling out onto the Ministry of Magic's floor.

'Tonks?'

Tonks rolled onto her side. 'Remus?'

Lupin helped her towards one of the mismatched collection of comfy chairs that had mushroomed where the golden fountain had been, sat her down and knelt beside her. 'Tonks, are you alright?'

'Fine. Just tripped. What are you doing here?'

Lupin tensed for a moment. 'Applying for a Marriage License.'

Tonks blinked at Lupin. 'You must love her.'

'Tonks, I love you but . . . With Lucy, it's as if I've always loved her, as though she's . . .'

'A soul mate?'

'Exactly so.' Lupin nodded enthusiastically missing, or choosing to ignore, the sarcastic undertone. Tonks stood up and Lupin scrambled to his feet. 'Tonks, about the cottage; that was decent of you.'

Except that it wasn't. Not entirely. She had insisted that he kept the cottage in Hogsmeade because, despite the exorbitant rates he would pay as a werewolf, Remus could never hope to obtain even reasonable accommodation otherwise. It was a bitter triumph to know that it would take him years to repay her share of the deposit and, even then, he would be in her debt.

And he'd hate it. 'We were friends before we were lovers,' she said. Lupin put his hand over his face for a moment and then turned the gesture into one of rubbing his eyes.

'Hello,' said a hard voice behind Tonks.

_Lucy Reive_, thought Tonks, turning slowly, _Remus' werewolf lover, now fiancée._

She wasn't beautiful. There was grey in her long auburn hair and a small scar across the bridge of her nose. The worn, ankle length, grey gown looked to be of muggle origin. _Masquerades as some sort of magical dabbler_, thought Tonks, _telling fortunes and peddling mystical tat. _She smiled with her mouth. 'Well, since you're her for a Marriage License, let me show you where . . .'

'I'm afraid it's not as simple as that,' interrupted Reive. 'They've had the application for four months now. Every week or so they call us in, keep us waiting most of the day and then, if we're lucky we get to see Madame Umbridge who keeps us standing while she enjoys a nice cup of tea and biscuits, asks insulting questions and pretends to clarify the same point she clarified the time before last. Have you any idea how difficult it is to run any sort of business like that? We're lucky if we get a day's notice when they want to see us.'

'This is Tonks, Lucy,' said Lupin and Reive deflated. 'Tonks, this is Lucy.'

'It's got nothing to do with the Auror office,' said Tonks, in a calm voice that surprised herself. 'Why not just marry as Muggles?'

'That would be deliberate action taken in order to avoid the requirements of a Ministry Decree,' said Lupin.

'That's nonsense' said Tonks. Reive made a small, rude noise. 'Something like that would be unenforceable. The Wizengamot wouldn't pass it.'

'It doesn't have to be enforceable against everybody,' Reive snatched a paper aeroplane from the air before it reached her eyes, 'and when the Wizengamot blindly passes enabling legislation, people use it as they see fit.' She dragged open the folded paper and glanced at it. 'Well, the toad's finally ready to see us,' she said, turning to Lupin who put his arm around her shoulders.

Tonks followed them into the lift. As it ground its way up the building, Lupin began to speak. 'We actually thought we'd succeeded, you know. They issued a Licence and set up a special appointment with the Magical Registry Office for a Sunday morning.'

'Registry's not usually open Sundays,' said Tonks.

'Exactly. Can't have werewolves mixing with ordinary decent people. The License was valid only for that date, so we made our arrangements and sent out invitations.'

'Then we got a letter from the Registry,' said Reive, 'telling us that they had unfortunately been scheduled for an 'Inspection of Records' and would we care to make another appointment.'

'So now we start again.'


	14. Discovery

'Bel?'

Mehitabel Fortinbras glanced up from the report she was writing and then stood and attempted to push Tonks into her chair. 'Tonks, should you be out of Saint Mungo's?'

Tonks refused to be pushed. 'What happened?' she asked.

'What do you remember?'

'Girls night out?' suggested Tonks unhappily.

'Right,' said Fortinbras. 'Don't look so worried. You fell off a roof.'

'What was I doing on the roof?'

Fortinbras considered. 'We've a penseive of young Goyle's memory. Perhaps you should see that.'

Tonks followed Fortinbras into the evidence room and, together, they opened the door to the walk-in safe where memories were stored. 'Not here,' reported Fortinbras. The heavy iron door clanged shut. 'Come on.'

Tonks followed her to the stationary cupboard. Inside, the normally dark space was lit with the rippling silver emanations from the Aurors' penseive. 'One moment.' Fortinbras reached into the penseive and disappeared in a flash of light. Bracing herself against the table it was on, Tonks learnt forward and then had to pull back sharply to avoid a collision with Gates as he almost fell out of the rippling surface. She watched as, one at a time, a dozen or so of her colleagues emerged from the penseive and, rather sheepishly, scuttled out of the cupboard, several of them congratulating her as they went. Fortinbras reappeared, put her hand on Tonks' shoulder and then they were falling into darkness that became a rainy night in Knockturn Alley.

Inside Goyle's memory, Tonks watched a large Death Eater, whom she recognised as Goyle himself, leading an enormous, shaggy horse across the cobbled area that connected the back of the 'Leaky Cauldron' to the alley. As light from the windows of the toilet block fell across them, the wall and the windows faded into wooden stable doors which swung silently open to admit them. Within, Tonks could see herself washing her face in the stream of cold water from one of the sinks. As she groped for a towel, Bellatrix Lestrange handed one to her. Memory Tonks said 'Ta,' and dried her face. The horse was investigating Goyle's robes as though searching for something. 'Stop that now,' he pleaded as it took a casual bite at his sleeve. The horse considered. Then it stuck a long tongue in behind the mask and tried to bite that, dislodging it so that it fell and skittered away under one of the cubicle doors.

'Hello Goyle,' said Tonks, drawing her wand.

'Er, hello Ms. Tonks.'

Bellatrix smiled unpleasantly. _'Expelliamus!' _'Hello Nymphadora,' she said. _'Stupefy! Levicorpus!'_

Bellatrix took Tonks out through the ghostly stable doors into the small courtyard. Looking deeply unhappy, Goyle stroked the horse gently and fed it a carrot. Sighing, he leant forward to rest his face against its hairy neck, patting it as it tried to raid his pockets. Finally, rather stiffly, he tied its reins to the taps of the sink nearest to the door into the bar and walked out into the rainy night, the wall reforming behind him.

'Let's fast forward a bit, shall we?' said Fortinbras. Raindrops blurred silver-grey for several seconds before refocusing with Tonks sitting, leaning against a wall, her arms at an uncomfortable angle behind her back.

Tonks watched as, in the memory, Bellatrix tried to recruit her and then she herself tried to recruit Goyle until he hissed _'Silencio'_, and she was forced to shut up.

'Fast forward,' said Fortinbras and the scene blurred, 'about twenty minutes.' The dull silver around them slowed and resolved itself into a light drizzle.

Snape was standing, wand in hand, surrounded by Death Eaters. 'Hand over your wand and we'll let her go,' said Bellatrix.

'Why should I care?' enquired Snape.

'Because she's your "get out of jail free card".' She threw back her head. 'Ha! Feeding love potion to an Auror, Snape. Maybe there's hope for you yet.'

'If you're seriously suggesting that I'd trust you then your hold on reality is even more tenuous than I'd thought'

'You can trust Goyle,' said Bellatrix, sounding irritated. 'He couldn't even kill a horse.'

'Goyle.' Snape sounded resigned. 'What are you doing here?'

'She threatened my mum.'

'And she'll do the same again tomorrow, and the day after, until she finds something you won't do.'

'Shut up!' screamed Goyle. He crashed forward, left hand seizing Tonks' throat from behind forcing her body to arc back against him.

'Look,' said Fortinbas. Tonks' earlier self was merely holding the ropes that had bound her in her left hand. In her right hand was her wand. Goyle relaxed his hold on her neck and she twisted free. She would have time for one spell before the others became aware that Goyle had betrayed them.

Basic training had clearly cut in: _when outnumbered cause confusion._ Tonks recognised her earlier self's wandwork as _'Accio!', _before the wand was snatched from her fingers. Goyle had retreated into a doorway, Snape's eyes were holes into another dimension and then Tonks saw something silver coming fast up the alley. Memory Tonks began moving towards Snape and no one but herself and Goyle saw the silver lengthen, twisting and flashing against the raindrops.

_A potion, _decided Tonks, _from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, _and then a sheet of living silver struck and the alley was empty apart from Snape and a flock of chickens.

'Alchemist's oil,' explained Fortinbras. 'Tasteless, odourless and magically inert. He's covered in it: uses it as a barrier against potions accidents in class. Fortunate really or . . .'

'Actually, I knew about that,' said Tonks as a chicken gave a squawk of outrage and launched itself at the one where Tonks had been standing. Snape raised his wand and then his eyes widened as the victim began to metamorphose.

'This is the best bit,' said Fortinbras. 'What _is_ that anyway?'

'Velociraptor,' replied Tonks. 'I used to be keen on dinosaurs when I was a kid. Is that Bellatrix?' The attack chicken wasn't giving up.

Fortinbras put a friendly arm around Tonks' shoulders. 'That was Bellatrix.' The velociraptor eyed the screeching thing, all mad eyes, beak and feathers, as it flapped frantically, desperately trying to get high enough to do some damage, and then lunged. There was a very permanent sounding crunch as tooth studded jaws snapped shut. The velociraptor straightened, tossed the bloody bundle high into the air, caught it with crunch about two notes down from the first and then swallowed. 'Well done,' said Fortinbras.

'I . . . _ate_ Bellatrix Lestrange.'

'Oh, yes.' Tonks cringed. 'And a couple of others.'

_And that's about it for my love life, _decided Tonks, _unless I take up with a muggle or slip someone a love potion . . . _

She opened her eyes to discover that Snape was smiling.


	15. Chapter 15

'She . . . ?'

'Yes.' said Snape.

Goyle tried again. 'She _ate_ . . . ?'

'Would you really rather she hadn't?'

The poultry around Tonks' feet clucked dubiously, evidently having difficulty processing that their erstwhile prisoner had turned into a large reptilian predator and that they themselves were now not so much big scary Death Eaters as potential dinosnacks. Tonks lunged and crunched happily. As birds shot off in all directions, the dinosaur spun, slipped on wet cobblestones and fell.

'I've seen enough,' muttered Tonks. 'Stop the memory.'

The velociraptor was back up, shaking its head. 'Wait a bit,' said Fortinbras. Tonks looked at her. 'You're going to be hearing all about it anyway. Best get the details straight.' Tonks felt sick but Goyle's penseive memory continued relentlessly; Snape was examining a small glass bottle he'd found in one of his pockets.

'Professor Snape?' whispered Goyle.

'What is it Goyle?'

'I don't think I want to marry Miss Tonks, sir.'

'Why ever not?'

'She scares me. And . . . and she's a mudblood, sir.'

'Goyle . . .'

'Yes sir?'

'A mudblood like Harry Potter?'

'Er . . . Yes?'

'And the half-blooded former 'Dark Lord' Voldemort, also known as Tom Riddle?'

'He was?'

'His father was a muggle,' said Snape, 'as was my own.'

Light dawned over Goyle's craggy visage. 'In that case, sir, I don't want to marry Miss Tonks because I'm courting Fiona Finch-Fletchly.'

'I don't think I know a Miss Fiona Finch-Fletchly, Goyle.'

'Her cousin's a wizard.'

'And Fiona Finch-Fletchly?'

'She's gorgeous, sir, that's what she is.'

'Really?' enquired Snape, 'and you're . . . courting her?'

'Every Saturday night,' gloated Goyle, 'whenever her parents are in town, and . . . and sometimes up in the hayloft and the barn. And the long field at the end of the paddock. And the horsebox at trials. And . . .' He stopped, blushing furiously. 'Right talented is Fiona,' he muttered, 'an' a right hard worker.'

'Congratulations,' murmured Snape, 'and now, if you'll excuse me, I think that I should to feed this emetic to Ms. Tonks before she reverts to human form or, perhaps, before _supper _reverts to human form.'

Goyle pulled a face. 'She seems nice,' he ventured, 'even if she does eat people. Did you really give her a love potion?'

Snape glared. 'Goyle,' he said, 'shut up.' He tossed the little bottle into the air, playing it with his wand like a fisherman a fly, bobbing it above Tonks' dinosaur nose. She gave Snape a dirty look and turned back to the chickens roosting in the gutter above, grinned a reptilian grin, and began to metamorphose.

'Oh no,' whispered Tonks. Once upon a time she'd 'stepped out' with Charlie Weasley and, in consequence, knew more than she'd ever wished to learn about dragons. Sure enough, the velociraptor's arms were lengthening, their orientation shifting: the dinosaur was becoming thinner, leathery webs stretching between sides, forelimbs and lengthening metatarsals.

'Oh yes,' said Fortinbras. 'There are some forms you'll need to sign. Dragon animagus.'

'There is no such thing.'

'There is now. According to the 'Theory of Morphic Resonance'. If you've done it once, you can do it again.'

'I didn't do that!' protested Tonks. 'Weasleys' "Chicken Soup" did that.'

'Even so.' Not seeming to have learnt anything, the chickens were gathering along the lower edge of a sort of lean-to, single story extension, shivering wetly and peering down at the unchanging, hungry grin. 'The thing is,' Fortinbras continued, 'quite a lot of our laws are based on muggle ones, just changing the details here and there. The ones about animagi differentiate on the basis of what you turn into. If you turn into a dog, then you're responsible for what you do as a dog, same as muggles are responsible if their dog bites someone. Would you like a liquorice allsort? She offered Tonks a crumpled, brown paper bag.

'Thank you. No.' The creature had completed its metamorphosis and was making small, experimental hops into the air.

Fortinbras took a sweet and stowed the bag back in her robes. 'Muggles aren't responsible for what their cats do in your garden because that's the nature of the beast. While you might be held accountable for turning into a dragon in the first place, you wouldn't automatically be held responsible for anything it did afterwards.'

'That's bollocks.' Tonks tore her eyes from the dragon.

'I'll have you know it was drafted by experts.' Fortinbras smirked. 'Including a moggie animagus who had several "special friends" on the Wizengamot.' She popped the sweet into her mouth and watched with satisfaction as the dragon's powerful hind legs tensed. Wings whooping madly, it rocketed upwards, talons scrabbling against iron guttering as all but one of the chickens fled squawking; noises immediately buried under the racket of the dragon flailing up the roof and slates raining down, crashing and shattering down in the alley below. It reached a low ridge and, wings spread for balance, began to jump and stagger along it.

Lights were appearing and windows slamming open. Still trying to persuade the Metamorphmagus to swallow the potion, Snape tried banging the bottle against its head. In the dimness, Tonks could see the reptile's lip curl; there was a crunch and then the dragon was spitting glass. With a dismayed expression it slid down into the shadow of a deep gully at the intersection of three steeply sloping areas of roof. Tonks could hear splashing and slurping.

The rain continued raining. 'Is that it?' enquired Tonks.

'Not quite.' Footsteps could be heard approaching from the direction of Diagon alley.

'Hello, hello, hello . . .' Wand light showed red hair, matching yellow and red striped dressing gowns, dragon hide boots and large, multicoloured plastic water guns in the Weasley twins other hands.

'We've had a bit of a break-in,' announced Fred (or possibly George).

'Or perhaps that should be a break- out,' remarked the other twin. 'We're missing most of our latest product.'

'To whit, a cauldronful of "Chicken Soup".'

'And it didn't break out on its own, did it sir?'

'Wouldn't happen to know anything about it now, would you, Professor Snape?'

Snape plucked a stray feather from his robes and shook it lose from his fingers. 'I believe you'd have to talk to Auror Tonks about that.'

'And now probably isn't a good time,' rumbled Goyle.

'We heard that you had dinner with Tonks last night,' the twins persisted.

'So perhaps you can tell us where she is?' Fred, or perhaps George, had cancelled his _'Lumos' _and was now idly levelling his wand at Snape. Goyle's hand disappeared into his robes.

'Drop your wands!' demanded a voice from the darkness.

'Oh no,' groaned Tonks, 'Please. Not McLaggan.'

'He was the only one available when the 'Leaky Cauldron' fire called their complaint about the noise and the damage to the roof. And you were the one who wanted to introduce him to, and I quote, "something bad-tempered with lots and lots of teeth". Are you sure you wouldn't like a sweet?' Fortinbras began hunting through her pockets. 'I've some peppermints somewhere.'

Up on the roof, the dragon had spotted McLaggan and, the tip of its tail twitching from side to side, begun a crawling descent towards him.

-

* * *

Author's note: if Terry Pratchett's Greebo can do it . . .

(I don't own Greebo (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?))


	16. Chapter 16

'Goyle.'

At Snape's quiet warning, Goyle stopped fumbling for his wand and _hulked_: with no metamorphmagical ability whatsoever, he stood quietly in the rain conveying a better than fair impression of a small brick outbuilding. 'I said "Drop your Wands",' growled McLaggan. _'Expelliamus!'_ Snape's wand went bouncing and clattering. Reluctantly, the Weasley twins handed over their own wands. 'Right. Who'd like to tell me what's going on?'

'We woke up when the windows downstairs broke,' began the Weasleys.

'And, when we got downstairs, we discovered a cauldronful of 'Chicken Soup' was missing. Not the cauldron you understand . . .'

'Just the . . .'

'Chicken soup?' queried McLaggan.

'A bit like 'Canary Creams' only . . .'

'Right,' said McLaggan.

'And Snape said we should talk to Tonks about it.'

'So we . . . '

Auror Lachlan McLaggan raised one hand to forestall further geminian explanation. 'Professor Snape?'

'Ms. Tonks found herself outnumbered. The 'Chicken Soup' evened the odds,' Snape said quietly.

'Oh dear.' The twins weren't worried. 'Where did she go?'

'I wonder if you've come across the concept of evolution?' pondered Snape. 'No? Well, it's something of a muggle idea but perhaps you should investigate it.'

'Evolution? Isn't that one animal turning into another?' asked McLaggan cautiously. All three considered the tiles littering the alley. Very slowly, their faces angled upward.

The dragon had evolved and it was now much larger.

Monstrous claws gripped the guttering; behind them, what looked like a grey, scaly gable end narrowed into a slender column disappearing upwards; the neck flexed and an enormous head loomed down from the darkness. Despite its finlike crest, it looked less reptilian than horselike; tufts of fuchsia feathers clustered around leathery ears, pricked to attention. Its sinuous prehensile tail darted out to wrap around a finial, preventing the creature from overbalancing as it leant over the alley, and lips curled back slowly from dagger like teeth.

'That's Tonks?' McLaggan raised his wand.

Pale flame played about the reptile's nostrils as it hiccoughed; a puff of reddish smoke preceded a belch and then, long neck snaking like a lose fire hose, it vomited copiously.

As Snape skipped nimbly backwards, a jet of blood, feathers, beer, bits of dead hen, traces of 'Chicken Soup' and miscellaneous dragon stomach contents all mixed up in gallons of rainwater was forcibly discharged along the alley, knocking flat both Weasleys and McLaggan. Irritably, the dragon swung its head, took another turn on the finial with its tail, and leant forward and down, apparently intent on varying its diet, and this was when the Weasleys remembered the water guns containing 'Chicken Soup' antidote.

Flopping in viscous brownish puddles, slithering around on the cobblestones, one of the twins scored a direct hit on the nearest wall, potion splashing off onto dragon vomit, causing some of the lumpier bits to mutate horribly, and then a silvery arc from the other Weasley's water gun intersected with a fushia crest and Tonks, suddenly lacking claws and prehensile tail to hold on with and wings to impede her fall, toppled forwards into the alley. There was a soft, indescribable noise as her head hit stone and a sharp crack as her body followed.

Her eyes blinked slowly open and closed as their sockets filled with blood and overflowed,

'Don't touch her!' McLaggan held off the twins with his wand and dragged from his pocket a small, circular mirror. 'Emergency,' he told it. 'Auror down in Knockturn Alley by Cauldron Court. Medical assistance required. Emergency. Auror down . . .' He listened to some reply audible only to its owner. 'No. Apparition would kill her.' Tonks glanced at herself and was forced to agree. 'Same for Portkey,' continued McLaggan. 'No. I'm not a Licensed Mediwizard . . .'

Snape knelt on the ground beside Tonks. A swift wand movement created an enlarged coloured image of her head in the air above; red fading through indigo to black reflecting massive damage. As she watched the memory, Tonks wondered where Snape had learned diagnostic spells.

'You get someone here now!'

'That's ok, Lachlan,' soothed the Fortinbras of Goyle's memory. The group of off-duty Aurors who'd been drinking in the Leaky Cauldron had arrived. 'Gates: Saint Mungo's. Abduction if necessary.' Gates disapparated. 'Snape?' Careless of her robes, Fortinbras knelt beside her injured colleague.

McLaggan turned his attention back to the mirror. 'Fifteen minutes will be too late,' he protested, his face ghastly.

'I could . . . I can try to stabilise her,' suggested Snape.

'Do it,' said Fortinbras.

Snape's wand gestured towards Tonk's head as he began to chant.

In the floating image, red fragments of bone slid slowly: arranging themselves in a loose formation. At this stage, repairing the skull would only damage the underlying tissue. He muttered something that sounded like a question and the image changed, accentuating the brain. Snape put down his wand and pulled Tonks up until her shoulders rested on his knees, her head against his breast, and cradling her face with his hand, began something that sounded like a whispered lullaby. The image continued to darken. Snape stopped and watched it for several breaths before picking up his wand. Tonks head lolled as he opened a shallow cut across his hand before returning it to steady her face. The wand, he held across her midriff and, eyes closed, recommenced his all but inaudible mantra until, finally, the dark areas of the image stopped expanding. It was apparent that the damage had been arrested but not until a small cheer went around the assembled Aurors could Tonks be sure that it was being reversed.

A double crack announced the arrival of Gates and a Mediwitch who made no attempt to interfere as the bruised colours of the image slowly faded to clear rose. Voice faltering, Snape's head fell forward, hair clumping about his face. The healer pointed her wand silently; bone slipped and closed until the image of the injured Auror's head was perfect. 'Good,' said the healer. 'Take her to Saint Mungo's for observation.

As Snape lowered a trembling hand, Tonks' eyes blinked open. 'That's a useful spell,' said Moody. Unpolyjuiced and befrocked, Madeye was something from a nightmare. In the wand light, high heeled silver sandals glittered in his hand.

'Check her stomach for transfigured materials,' warned Snape, stiff fingers amongst the cobblestones, bracing himself from falling with shaking arms.

'What sort of materials?' queried the mediwitch, opening a small notepad.

One of the twins squirted 'Chicken Soup' antidote over dragon vomit and the healer opened her mouth, shut it and put the book away. Tonks found herself wincing at gelatinous human limbs lying tangled in the gutter. 'I'll take her,' said Styles, bending to ease his colleague forward and pull her into his arms. 'Tonks, sweetheart, apparition,' he murmured and they were gone.

'He's as thick as two short planks and he's a Death Eater!'

Tonks turned to see Justin Finch Fletchly arguing with Fiona. 'I'm not a Death Eater,' protested Goyle.

'Is that so?' Justin wiggled Goyle's mask at him.

'They threatened my mother if I didn't . . .'

'You should have told the Aurors.'

'Yeah right,' huffed Goyle, 'and they'd have immediately mounted round the clock protection. We're nobodies. They're too busy playing Palace Guard for Umbridge.'

'Yeah? Aren't you a pureblood?' objected Justin.

'Nobody,' persisted Goyle. Fiona Finch-Fletchly abandoned the horse and slipped her hands into his large ones. 'I'm sorry Fi,' he murmured penitently. On tiptoe, Fiona reached up to kiss him and then Tonks was thrown up and out as the penseive recording of Goyle's memory terminated abruptly.

Which was quite understandable really, Tonks decided. After so much spilt circulatory fluid, she was delighted by such a carnal subversion of Goyle's 'Pureblood' ideology. In the stationary cupboard light patterns danced from the surface of the penseive. 'Fiona managed to er . . . get some sense into him then?' she enquired.

'Formal engagement,' said Fortinbras.

'Really? That's nice.'

'Tonks,' said Fortinbras, 'could Snape have given you a love potion?'


	17. Chapter 17

'What?' demanded Tonks.

'Could Snape have given you a love potion?' repeated Fortinbras. She dipped her wand into the penseive and withdrew the silver thread of memory; curving and twisting, it insinuated itself back into the little bottle set beside the rune-carved bowl.

'You've got to be joking! This is Snape we're talking about. Of course he could. But that doesn't mean he did.'

Fortinbras closed the bottle and pocketed it. 'Narcissa Malfoy has stated that you asked him to marry you,' she said. 'Shortly after you had dinner with him.'

'And very shortly after one of my colleagues gave me "Golpalott's Green".'

The senior Auror winced. 'I told you to go home.'

'You told me to send the sprogs home first and, unfortunately, they were at Hogwarts, on Dawlish's orders, hassling Snape over money.'

'So he'd've had motive?'

'Bel,' warned Tonks. 'This isn't funny.'

Fortinbras opened the cupboard door and pushed her out into the corridor. 'No,' she agreed, 'it's not. And no I don't think he did that; however, some of his former associates do and I have to investigate. The Interview Room's empty.'

Tonks followed her colleague 'Is this official?' she asked.

'Not yet.'

In the interview room Fortinbras closed the door behind her and raised the wards. 'Sit down.'

Tonks sat. 'I think I might have noticed a love potion.'

'It's hardly likely that he'd use Amortentia,' replied Fortinbras. 'Can you deny finding him attractive?'

'No,' said Tonks, 'I can't. But, from what we've seen, neither can you.' She sat on one of the pair of chairs facing each other across a table, leant back and then, immediately, straightened. 'Why, of all the things we might have got from muggles, these plastic horrors?'

'The chairs are supposed to be uncomfortable.' Fortinbras sat down. 'How long this has been going on?'

'How long has what been going on? Bloody hell, Bel, what is this? Kafka? What do you want me to say?'

Fortinbras steepled her fingers and said nothing.

'I kissed him, once,' said Tonks, 'and Shacklebolt asked the same question. Wanted to know what he'd given me. And it was just to thank him for a kindness: a potion to deal with itchy green fur, courtesy of Hogwarts' house elves when they were pissed off with Umbridge.'

Fortinbras eyebrows went up. 'That was the house elves? Well. How did Snape react to being kissed?'

'He told me off.'

Fortinbras said nothing.

'The idea was to stop him getting shipped off to Azkaban. Married to an Auror, they'd have to charge him properly and give him a chance to defend himself. The poor sod's convinced that not only do we lock people up without charge, but we then throw them off the boat. In chains.'

'I'm fairly sure that's not Official Policy,' said Fortinbras, neutrally. The older woman folded her arms onto the table and leant forward. 'Now, if there had been some sort of relationship . . .' Silence curled like smoke around them as Tonks thought desperately.

'A relationship?' she ventured finally. 'Would that need to be a physical relationship?'

'Star crossed lovers?' A small huff of laughter. 'Convince me.'

Tonks took a deep breath. 'Meetings at Grimmauld Place,' she began.

'Yes?'

'Boring.'

'Yes.'

'So Snape used them as an opportunity to practice Legilimency.'

'Plausible,' considered Fortinbras.

'Fact,' said Tonks. 'And having been interrogated by Snape, you might say that I've been sensitised to his . . . mental incursions.'

'You were? When?'

'Unlike you, it wasn't immediately apparent to the Order that I was on the side of the righteous. So they had Snape . . .' Tonks tailed off, still uncomfortable with what had happened.

'Veritaserum and Legilimency?' suggested Fortinbras softly. Tonks nodded. 'Anything else?'

_Getting too damn close _ thought Tonks. 'No,' she said. 'But the thing is, in a room full of people, without having to see or hear him, even when no one else noticed, I always knew when he'd come in. And I always knew when he was prying and I got a bit fed up with it so I . . .' She could feel blood rushing under her skin. 'So, one evening, when he wasn't trying to be subtle, rather I'd the feeling he was taunting me, I hit him with a . . . I hit him with a vivid mental image of himself tied to my bed and me undressing him.'

'I see,' said Fortinbras.

'You should have seen the look on his face,' said Tonks. 'And it was effective, at least for the rest of the meeting. And when he tried again a week later, well I'd had some time to work on the idea.'

'I suppose that might explain the coughing,' murmured Fortinbras, rubbing her jaw. 'And why he never stayed to dinner,'

'I would certainly hope so,' said Tonks. 'I put a lot of time and effort into crafting all that smut.'

'Tonks,' said Fortinbras, 'I seem to remember, on one occasion, after he'd had a bit of a scuffle with Sirius, you lifting some hairs of his cloak. Please tell me you weren't using Polyjuice to research your imaginings.'

'I wasn't using Polyjuice for research,' replied Tonks, straight-faced. 'Even though we're taught to be thorough.'

From the look on her face, Fortinbras didn't believe her. 'And you've never?'

'No. I'd have been wasting my time trying. Spying on Voldemort, he couldn't afford that kind of involvement. And after . . . Well, I never saw him and I'd no reason to believe that he'd ever seen it as anything other than a challenge and maybe a bit of . . .'

'Light relief?'

'Something like that,' said Tonks. 'But when he risked capture by Bellatrix to help us at the exhibition centre . . .'

Fortinbras stood up. 'Ok,' she said, 'you'll find Animagus Registration forms on your desk. You need to get them filled in and submitted ASAP. Preferably, before McLaggan gets back from Saint Mungo's.' She noticed Tonks' enquiring look. 'He and the Weasley twins had an adverse reaction to dragon vomit, or rather what was in it.' Tonks shuddered as she tried to squelch the image of the three of them flopping around. 'Started sprouting feathers.' Fortinbras took down the wards with a gesture. 'Apparently, he's finally finished moulting. Well, it was his own fault. The twins were out next day but when McLaggan found out that Snape had mixed the antidote . . . was, in fact, accredited to Saint Mungo's . . . He was funny though: sitting there, half covered in befouled feathers, muttering "Well that can't be right." You know that stuff stuck like glue? I almost felt sorry for him.' She turned the door handle. 'Get those forms filled in.' With a bit of a struggle, she pushed open the door.

Milling around outside the Interview Room, scaling furniture, kicking, defecating, baaing, butting and biting, were sheep.


	18. Sheep

Fortinbras jabbed her wand into the nearest woolly posterior causing the sheep to struggle, bleating, out of the way. _'Finite Incantatum!'_ she bellowed: the creature bounded forward as if stung to become wedged amongst other sheep. It gave Fortinbras a filthy look over its shoulder.

'It's no good, they're real sheep,' yelled Gates, over the din. He'd taken refuge on top of his desk and what could be seen of him, above the partition, looked distinctly the worse for wear and tear.

Fortinbras tried again._ 'Stupefy!'_

'SOMEONE'S done some very clever spell work or they're too stupid to STUPEFY.'

A few stinging hexes parted the heaving tide of thigh-high, off-white wool. 'Oops!' Fortinbras caught Tonks before she could fall.

'Bit slippery underfoot,' Tonks apologised.

'That would be the sheep shit. Looks at though someone doesn't think much of Ministry personnel,' mused Fortinbras. Further hexes allowed the women to reach the older Auror's desk and scramble on top. It had been extremely slippery underfoot and it was with relief that Tonks gazed out from this vantage point to discover that, over by the lifts, the beginnings of order were being restored. _'INCARCEROUS! Silencio!'_

'Do a lot of that where you come from, Mad Eye?' jeered a voice.

'Watch it, sonny,' barked Moody. _'Incarcerous! Incarcerous!'_

'Only asking, Alastor!'

_Incarcerous!'_

'Oi! Is that reasonable, I ask you? Is that nice? Oof!' A curly-horned head collided with the rope wrapped Auror. 'Alastor! Take it off, you git!' Comically slowly and still bleating, he toppled to be lost under the seething sea of sheep.

'Where did they come from?' asked Tonks as others began to follow Moody's lead in dealing with the unruly flock, quick to realise that this had, at least, the advantage of any retaliation happening at ground level. Sheep, they were discovering, would bite anything they could reach.

'Apparently,' began a voice from behind a partition; Tonks peered over to find Styles curled up comfortably on top of a desk, 'some wicked person transfigured them into teacups and put them on the tea trolley and they reverted when they got wet.'

'Just unfortunate about the werewolves,' put in Gates. 'Sheep don't like werewolves. Tend to crap themselves and run about. See that clean patch in Umbridge's doorway?' Tonks looked. There was a definite area of blue, rather than muddy brown, suggestive of something person-in-robes-shaped having been peeled off it. 'Poor woman got badly trampled when she opened the door; Dawlish had to take her to Saint Mungo's.

_This isn't funny_ thought Tonks. 'Nothing to do with you?' she suggested, coldly.

'Course not,' replied Styles. 'And stop panicking: Potter's already sneaked Remus and his little friend out under an invisibility cloak. Here you go, they left you a note.'

Tonks took the crumpled paper and slid down the partition onto her bottom. _Dora, Thanks for lending us the cottage. If I hadn't actually tried it I'd always have wondered if it might have worked out, I mean living amongst . . . _Something was scribbled out._ So sorry, love. Be happy. Remus. _The familiar, rounded lettering began to blur and Tonks tried not to sniff.

'Bugger,' announced Fortinbras, dropping onto her knees on the desk beside her. 'Here,' she said. Tonks accepted the tissues and then, reluctantly, the keys to the cottage. 'Probably best if they stay out of the way for a while,' she said gently.

'But they wouldn't have done that.' Tonks blew her nose. 'Well Remus wouldn't.'

'I know.' Fortinbras became all business. 'McLaggan's just arrived and gone into Umbridge's office. You need to go and file those Animagus papers.' She scrambled down, slipped her arm around her younger colleague's shoulders and slid her gently off the desk.

From the cubicle, Tonks could see not only her own desk but also the sheep that were under it balefully chewing documents. 'The Registration papers: what colour were they?' she asked.

'Pink,' replied Fortinbras, turning. 'Damn. You'll need to get some more from the Dormouse. Better not call him that. Mr. Thomas of Animagus Registration. It's afternoon so it's probably on the fifth floor. Right at the far end of the corridor.'

'And where is it, probably, in the morning?'

'Mostly the fourth floor. That area of the building's unstable.' Fortinbras propelled her gently through the struggling, rope bound flock. 'So don't put anything down; not if you value it.' Summoning the lift, she turned to Tonks and smiled. 'It's good to have you back.'

&

'Hello?'

There had been no reply to her knocking so Tonks pushed open the door and walked into a shadowy, open space; greenish illumination from an overhead bulb revealing a desk, a single filing cabinet and a large chair occupied by a man, curled up and apparently fast asleep. On the bare, wooden floor, a circle was marked around the furniture in grubby white paint. The walls to the sides were lost in darkness while the room beyond the furniture was screened by heavy, black curtains of some low-grade material that looked to have been frequently and badly mended, extending upwards into obscurity.

'Hello?' Tonks knocked again, this time on the desk. 'Mr. Thomas?'

'I was awake.' Tonks swallowed a smirk, wondering if the small man Fortinbras had called 'the Dormouse' talked in his sleep. Thomas shook himself briskly, blinked through his spectacles and then grinned maniacally. 'Would you like a cup of tea?' he asked.

'Yes, I would.' Tonks hadn't realised how thirsty she was. 'Please.' Thomas grinned again and a wooden stool screeched across the floor from out of the darkness to stop next to the desk. Tonks sat down and watched while Thomas pulled a tray from the top drawer of the filing cabinet. On it were tea things of fine porcelain and a red knitted cosy covering a teapot from which steam was rising.

'Milk? Sugar?' Thomas poured the tea and then frowned at the stool. 'Oh dear, that can't be comfortable,' he apologised. 'I'd get you something else, only I daren't, see. If I were to try for an armchair I don't think I want to know what might happen.' He took a sip of his tea and, cup in hand, promptly fell asleep. Tonks drank her own tea gratefully and relaxed. When she had finished, as Thomas was still asleep, she poured herself another cup. In the gloom, the odd, muffled noised from the rest of the building were restful. She could hear footsteps and a prolonged humming that she thought was probably the lifts and, on the very edge of hearing, voices.

Finally, she put her cup back on the tray. 'Mr. Thomas?'

Again, Thomas shook himself awake. 'Oh. Right. Now, what I can do for you, dear?'

'Animagus registration'

'Really?' He grinned. 'What do you turn into then?'

'A dragon.'

'Oh now you're being silly,' he scowled. 'You can't turn into a magical beast. Fortinbras sent you, didn't she? Bloody wild story about Death Eaters.' He bent to hunt through a bin that had been hidden under his desk and pulled out a rolled-up newspaper. 'There's nothing it that in the "Prophet". Here.'

Tonks unrolled the paper. The front page was filled with a picture of Scrimgour, Fudge and Dolores Umbridge, all looking very smug under big headlines. 'DEATH EATERS DEFEATED IN MINISTRY COUP.'

'See,' Thomas interrupted, 'Now if you've finished your tea, I think you'd best be going.'

'A potion turned me into a chicken and after that I turned myself into a dragon and one of my colleagues is . . . I'm a Metamorphmagus,' explained Tonks.

'You're Nymphadora Tonks?' Thomas stared at her. 'And you're not a nasty puddle of goo on the ground?' The grin returned 'Oh well,' he said, 'if you've done it once, you should be able to do it again.'

'I don't have any of the potion,' protested Tonks.

'You won't need it,' Thomas encouraged her. 'Did Fortinbras mention about this area being unstable? Just step outside the circle and try.' Thomas pressed a button on the side of the desk; a whirring and clunking accompanied the drawing back of the black curtains to reveal an enormous mirror. Thomas eyed Tonks appraisingly. 'Hang on a mo.' Opening the filing cabinet's bottom drawer, he reached in deep and pulled out a bucket. 'Right,' he grinned, setting it at the edge of the painted circle. 'On you go then.'

* * *

- 

Yes, that is an appalling Welsh accent. Mr. Thomas enjoys taking the piss out of his non-Welsh colleagues.There are not enough Welsh People in Fanfic.

Cardiff is fabulous, even if they do sing at you in packs. Beware of the Brains' Dark. (Beer that does what it says on the label).

(Sheep borrowed From Rabbit and vJinxv but I put them straight back).

Braaaaaaains!


	19. Animagus Registration

It was a very ordinary grey galvanised bucket with traces of brownish residue in the bottom. Tonks looked at it. 'Nasty puddle on the floor?' she enquired.

'Didn't happen,' soothed Thomas. 'Won't happen. Probably. So, you need to concentrate . . .''

'So why the bucket?'

Thomas grinned fiendishly. 'Aide memoir.'

'I'm not sure this is a good idea. The last time I was a dragon I ate . . .'

'I know, good thing too, but don't worry. Last time you came at it from being a chicken. This time it's from human. S'different. See?'

'Really? You think it'll make that much of a difference?

Thomas pursed up his lips. 'Well. Probably. You being a Metamorphmagus an' all, it's hard to say. It's well known that Animagi do 'ave snacks sometimes. Even 'domesticated' ones that shouldn't. Still, nothing to worry about. Go on.'

Tonks closed her eyes and concentrated.

'No, no, no, no, no,' said Thomas. You don't apparate by walking. "Destination, determination, and deliberation?" Same idea. "Form, fix it and . . . flow.' He made the last word sound like an indecent proposition. 'Go on.' Tonks looked at him. Thomas looked at her. His head angled down towards his shoulder until he was squinting at her sideways. 'Can you remember doing it before?'

'Sorry, no,' said Tonks, wondered why terrible things didn't happen often enough to people who are enthusiastic when you're feeling hungover. 'I got bashed on the head shortly after.'

'Well. How do you think you were feeling?'

'Angry?' suggested Tonks. 'Annoyed? Scared?' An eighteen foot crocodile lunged at her like a flat green train. Tonks leapt into the air and flew higher.

'You can come back down now,' yelled Thomas who had morphed back. 'You don't want to go too far. There's a very strong magical field at this end of the building. Tends to warp things. Come back down now, there's a good girl.'

Tonks set down gently just outside the circle. Thomas circled her grinning. 'Always comes as a surprise, that,' he said. 'Very helpful that is.' Tonks followed him with her eyes, her long neck rotating as he passed behind her. He looked equally mad upside down. Being a dragon had done something to her thinking, she decided. Still human, it felt as if some aspects of her normal mindset might be . . . attenuated, if not missing. She suspected that if she'd really been annoyed with Thomas he'd have been in very serious trouble.

'Oh, very good indeed,' concluded Thomas. 'Hang on now, we'll need a picture.' From a drawer came a boxy looking camera. 'Instant pictures. Amazing what magic can do these days. Hold still.' There was a flash that made Tonks blink and a whirr as a flat rectangle was ejected from the camera. 'Just have to wait a bit.' The grin reappeared. 'Don't suppose you'd like to come out with me? We reptiles ought to stick together.' Tonks breathed out a plume of greyish smoke. 'Oh well. Think about it.' Thomas peeled the rectangle apart and showed Tonks the photograph. 'There's lovely, girl. You can turn back now whenever you like.'

Tonks turned to look at herself in the mirror. She was considering the long neck and tail, the elegant architecture of her wings, the equine head with its tufts of iridescent feathers and was coming to quite cheerful conclusions when the mirror shattered as though hit with a brick. Tonks leapt backwards and there was a clatter as her tail caught the bucket and sent if flying into the darkness. She'd the impression that, just before it disappeared, it hadn't been a bucket any more. It had looked more like a small grey pig. Tonks morphed to human and turned back to the mirror: the bright spider's web of cracks radiating out from a point near the centre. 'What happened to that?' she asked.

'Oh dear. Oh dear,' whispered Thomas, suddenly not looking so good.

Tonks took his arm gently. What's with the mirror?'

'The thing is, the Ministry is connected to all of magical Britain,' began Thomas, not taking his eyes from the glittering web. 'It always was. Something in the Department of Mysteries. Any stresses or imbalances show up here in the fabric of the Ministry building. It got worse when they extended and put in the new lifts at the other end. When they put the lifts in, it all got concentrated down this end. That's when they put the mirror in, see? To warn them about the stresses. Although what they think they'll do about it . . .' The cracks had begun to drop out of the mirror, the surface flowing back to its earlier perfection. 'There's still stairs in there, you know? Behind the curtain.' He pulled his eyes away from the reflecting surface. 'Look, sit down a minute and I'll sort out the paperwork for you.'

Pink forms, a small booklet, glue and official stamps were produced and, in record time, Tonks was holding something about the size of a passport to confirm her animagus status. 'Thank you,' she said and then the mirror cracked again

Thomas blinked. 'You're an Auror,' he said. 'Perhaps you wouldn't mind doing something for me?' He swallowed hard. 'Go and see what floor we're on.'

Tonks drew her wand. To the beat of her own heels, she crossed the open floor towards the mirror which was set back a little way behind the curtain leaving a sort of passageway on either side. She turned round and Thomas pointed to his left.

'_Lumos!' _said Tonks, stepping behind the curtain. A short way down the passageway, the edge of the mirror gave way to peeling paintwork. At eye level, a black, cast iron hand bearing an enamel 'Exit' sign pointed towards a large pair of double-hinged doors. There were long vertical glass panels set into the doors but only darkness behind them. Tonks leant on one and it opened reluctantly, magic or a strong spring pushing the door back at her. She slid her wand into the gap. There was the usual musty smell of unused spaces with something suggestive of disturbed earth underlying it. Beyond the door, a dusty iron handrail came down from the darkness, turned and continued its descent. On the wall behind, another enamel sign, identical to those telling the floor at the other end of the building, wasn't quite readable. Without letting go of the door, Tonks edged closer and something cold crept down her spine. There weren't half that number of floors in the building. 'Sixteen,' she announced.

There was a muffled expletive and the sound of drawers banging. Tonks retraced her steps and came back out from being the curtain to find Thomas lifting his hat from a hat stand that hadn't been there before. He already had on his coat. 'It's been up to forty-two when Voldemort was about,' he announced. 'Never seen it change so fast before, though. Not in a one. Think it's time I took some sick leave.' He began to wrap a scarf around his neck. It occurred to Tonks that that doorway out to the corridor seemed further away than it had been and glanced down to discover that fernlike patterns were emerging from the circle of grubby paint surrounding Thomas' furniture. She realised that his 'office' occupied what had once been a lobby for the stairwell.

'Best get out of here,' said Thomas. 'Come on.' He seized her arm and hustled her across the floor. As he opened the door, Tonks glanced back. The furniture was definitely further away and now seemed oddly warped with dull prismatic effects along the edges.

_Like looking through a lens_ thought Tonks, and got out through the door fast.

Back in the corridor Thomas locked and double locked the door behind him. 'I'd best inform the Department of Mysteries.' He said and sucked his teeth. 'Good luck, girl.'


	20. Chapter 20

As the lift grunted and ground its way between floors, Tonks closed her eyes and slumped against the panelling. Right now she felt dirty-down-to-the-bone tired. It wouldn't take much for her to crumble and blow away like some vampire from an old movie, exposed to light. She decided to leave Fortinbras with her animagus papers and take the rest of the day - stuff that, the rest of the week - off. There was a jerk and a weary rattle and, without properly opening her eyes, Tonks pried herself off the friendly wall and allowed her legs to roll her out into the corridor. She was congratulating herself on realising that there were already people there before actually running into them when Granger asked: 'Tonks, should you be out of Saint Mungo's?'

The young Unspeakable sounded concerned. Potter and Weasley were hovering as if they expected Tonks to fall over. 'Just got my Animagus Registration Papers,' said Tonks, waving the little pink book.

Weasley snatched and opened it to display the photograph of dragon-Tonks. 'Hermione, you've got to see Goyle's memory of . . .' He broke off when Granger elbowed him.

'That's great,' she said. How's the Dormouse?'

_Big and green_ thought Tonks and concentrated on sounding rational. 'Ok. Not too keen on his the mirror breaking though. Decided to go 'sick' when I told him we were on the sixteenth floor.'

'Sixteenth?'

Tonks nodded.

'And the mirror broke?'

'Twice.'

'Oh dear,' muttered Granger. 'That's not good. Well, it could be good but I doubt it.'

'Sixteenth floor?' asked Weasley, rubbing at his side.

'Any sort of crisis and that end of the Ministry acquires extra levels,' explained Granger. 'We think part of it may be the remains of an old spell to provide a refuge in times of crisis. Of course you'd have to be mad to go anywhere near those stairs, let alone attempting the phantom floors. They're not in ordinary Wizard space. Look, I'd better go.' She slipped through the lift doors before they could close and jabbed at a button.

'Tonks, I think you need to sit down,' said Potter.

Treading firmly on his foot to prevent him escaping, Tonks wrapped an arm around Weasley's head and reacquired her papers. 'I'll just hand these to Fortinbras and then I'll go and lie down,' she said, veering towards Fortinbras's cubicle. 'Anyone who disturbs me will be eaten.'

Fortinbras was filling out yellow forms. _Prisoner release,_ Tonks mind supplied and then she noticed the folder labelled 'Severus Snape'. 'Please tell me we didn't arrest Snape?'

'You were quick.' Fortinbras got up and perched on the edge of her desk.

'Mr. Thomas was keen to go home,' said Tonks.

'Did his mirror break?' Fortinbras tried a smile.

'Twice'

One eyebrow rose. 'Twice?' Fortinbras took the pink booklet from Tonks' hand. 'Looks like we're going be busy. Ok. I'll get your files updated. You'd better go and spring Snape.' She bent and signed the first and second of the yellow forms and offered them to Tonks. 'Don't worry: it's not Azkaban. Just 'Holding' and he's being treated very well. First Mad-eye had a word and then Potter and Weasley had a few more.'

Unspeaking, Tonks took the form, folded it, and tucked it into her robes.

'McGonagall's been raising hell,' said Fortinbras. 'Personally, I think Snape's enjoying the break. He's got Potter, Weasley and Granger running errands for him.

Go and turf him out before the poor sods in 'Holding' do something they might regret.'

Tonks gave a small 'hmf' of wry amusement. She was sure that ir hadn't been Fortinbras's idea to arrest Snape, however defensive she seemed. 'Pepper-up potion,' she said.

'Probably not a good idea.'

'Give.' Tonks held out a hand.

Fortinbras slid open a drawer and handed Tonks a small blue bottle. Tonks unstoppered it, checked the level within, drained it and coughed. Wincing, Fortinbras took back the bottle and stopper. 'And then go home,' she said. 'And not to the Ministry flat. Go and visit your mother. Tell her you're not to be disturbed. Don't even think of coming back here until you've had some sleep.'

Tonks nodded and stumbled off, head clearing as the potion cut in. She reached the lifts, called them and waited. And waited. And cursed under her breath and kicked the panelling. After the Dormouse's 'Office', she really didn't want to use the stairs but neither did she want to wait all day._ Sod's Law_ she decided, _right down to the bloody lifts._

Finally a lift arrived and Tonks made to enter it. 'Hem,' said Umbridge. Tonks resisted the temptation to deck her. 'I'm really not sure that you should be out of Saint Mungo's, Auror Tonks.' The woman smiled. 'I do wonder if you're taking proper care of yourself. Come along and we can have a nice little téte a téte. Just the two of us.' Tonks put her fists behind her back, opened her left hand far enough to grasp her right wrist firmly, followed Umbridge and didn't morph into a dragon.

It wasn't easy.

'Now dear. Don't stand on ceremony. Sit down. Sit down.' Umbridge inserted herself behind her desk.

Tonks stood and waited.

Umbridge folded her hands on her desk 'Well, Auror Tonks, you mustn't worry about the enquiry. There will be plenty of time for that when you're feeling better.'

'Enquiry, Madam Umbridge?'

'The enquiry into your . . ..' She grimaced and held up a pudgy hand. 'Now don't you worry. Anyone who talks out of turn will face serious disciplinary action. What happened needn't ever come to light.'

'I'm sorry Madam Umbridge; I don't understand the need for an enquiry.'

'Auror Tonks, may I remind you that you were . . . You do know that you ate three people?'

'I was a dragon at the time,' said Tonks, 'and I ate a few chickens. Animagi sometimes hunt prey. I understand that I might have had to pay for the chickens if they'd belonged . . .'

'Stop.' Umbridge took a deep breath. 'Am I to understand that you propose to claim that you acted as you did under the influence of an animagus transformation?'

'Yes.'

'So, if I were to ask you now to show me your Animagus Registration Papers, you could do that?

'No,' admitted Tonks. Umbridge looked regretful. 'Auror Fortinbras has them. And please don't worry. While I'm a bit embarrassed about the chicken-eating, I certainly don't regret doing what was necessary to stop the Death Eaters.'

'I see,' said Umbridge. 'Very well. Auror Tonks, you can go.'

This time the lift was waiting for her. Five minutes later she was handing over Snape's Release Papers. The clerk looked up at her unhappily. 'I wish you people would make up your minds,' he grumbled. 'Have you any idea how much paperwork's involved in getting someone out of Azkaban?'

'Azkaban?' Something terrible roosted in Tonks' belly, cold wings fluttering under her ribs.

'Yes. Not ten minutes ago. Fowler and Murchison. Orders signed by Madam Umbridge.'

* * *

Thank you whitehound. 


	21. Chapter 21

'You deal with Snape's release papers. I'll collect him,' said Tonks, turning to where three great hooks supported the infamous portkeys to Azkaban. There remained two slender iron bands; the third absent, far to the North, on the prison's corresponding hook

'Auror Tonks . . .'

'You don't want to get in the way of an Auror doing her duty.' The clerk swallowed. 'Let me rephrase that.'

'No need.' The clerk stood, stiffly, out of the way. Whatever warnings were made about 'talking out of turn', news got round.

'Thank you.' Tonks grasped smooth grey metal and opened her eyes to grimy daylight, the groaning of sea on stone and a dull iron clanking: the noise of a continuous loop of heavy chain winding its way between twin windlasses on either side of the sea channel between the massive granite block of the prison itself and off-lying Portkey Island, ferrying a small iron boat across Azkaban's lethal tides.

Enclosed in a small recess in a rocky outcrop, a row of hooks held a single ring. Tonks dropped her Portkey over the next. Around the outcrop, a circular path ran down to the boat slip, out of sight, on the other side. She hurried down it, trying to ignore icy blasts direct from the Arctic Circle. Nothing grew here. Grey on grey surrounded her, no single trace of green except in the granite. And then the clanking stopped.

Tonks ran.

Clearing the rock wall, she saw the boat, under the stony overhang of the prison's entrance just off the slipway, heaving in a confused and leaden swell. In it three figures stood precariously, two of them struggling to control the third who, as she watched, fell and was swallowed by hungry water. Tonks morphed and spread her wings, gliding low over angry, rolling grey, before plunging in with barely a splash.

Briefly, Tonks was grateful for Charlie Weasley's not infrequent pontification upon his favourite subject. As expected, the dragon flew easily underwater, had no problem discerning the rocky underwater boundaries and found that she had a near eidetic memory of the cliff face above. Dragons,' Charlie Weasley had said, 'have an electrical sense. It helps them avoid power lines.' Dragon-Tonks found that she could 'see' something kicking hard and sinking slowly: Snape, fighting in the water, the only other living thing down here, apparently trying to chew off his heavy manacles. As she got closer, his hands came out as though to push her away and she thrust her head into the circle made by his arms and the restraining chain, twisting so that Snape's body rode on her back between her wings.

Away from the boat, she surfaced and heard and felt Snape draw a shuddering breath. Her keen eyes found Fowler and Murchison, crouched in their boat, peering over the side. With a clunking and jerking of chain, the windlasses started up again. The Aurors in the boat exchanged glances, sat down and fixed their eyes on the prison entrance.

Tonks flew, or swam, to where the fallen ceiling of a sea cave provided an easy way out of the water, dragged herself and Snape up onto it and morphed back. Encircled in Snape's arms, his face inches from her own, she was dismayed to discover that he looked murderous. He hauled them both into a sitting position and wrenched his arms over her head, the swinging chain catching her ear as he pulled himself away from her. 'Ms. Tonks, did I ask you to interfere?' Coatless, Snape's wet linen shirt clung to him. He scowled and attacked his cuff with his teeth, tugging at a button.

'Didn't you?'

'No. I did not. Stasis charm.' He indicated the button. 'Tides around Azkaban are spelled so that anything in the water washes up onto the island. In a few hours I'll fetch up on the shore below the graveyard. Bodies don't rot here, there's nothing in the soil, so when Hogwarts request that mine be returned to them, your friends will notice nothing unusual. After I've been revived, I'll leave the country.'

_To avoid chained corpses turning up in muggle fishing nets, _Tonks supposed. It was a plan. Of sorts. 'I hope you're going to poison Umbridge before you go,' she said. She didn't dare ask about Murchison and Fowler and whether Snape had jumped or been pushed. 'Or have you forgotten that I owe you a Life Debt?'

'You don't.' A dirty look and Snape returned to his chewing.

'Knockturn Ally?'

He lowered his wrist. 'I trained as a healer.'

'You might have trained as a Healer but that wasn't standard Medimagic. The only way that could have worked was by tying my life to your own and, if I'd died, you might not've been able to untie it; especially if the integrity of your magic was compromised by the year you spent roped to Dumbledore. You might find that you've more than a few loose ends. So, once, for mending my skull,' Tonks held up her hand and bent down a finger, 'and once for coming to Knockturn Alley in the first place.'

'Perhaps you've forgotten my own history with Bellatrix.'

'You risked your life to save mine.' Tonks bent down another finger. 'And once for warning my parents that Voldemort was after me.' Another finger. 'Life debts; and even if none of them were certain, three's the charm. People have lost their magic, even their lives, through failing to. . .'

'You saved my life when you turned into a dragon.'

'Doesn't count. I also saved my own life. And that's without considering other times like when you sent Dumbledore to the Ministry after Potter and his little friends when I'd managed to dent myself falling down steps.'

'Fine. I absolve you of any such debt.'

'And Potter? Have you absolved him too? He failed to protect you. He'll have to avenge your death.'

'Only if he knows there's been foul play.'

'He'll find out! And this is Harry James "If there's trouble, I'll find it and poke it in the eye with a stick" Potter we're talking about here. Harry's a good kid, I like him, but the little bugger acts as if he thinks he's indestructible.' Tonks shook her head. 'There are times I could quite cheerfully strangle him.'

'There isn't time for this.' Snape gestured towards the boat, now on its return journey, snarled and took another wrench at the button. Tonks drew her wand. _Minerva,_ she thought; she visualised Snape and herself with Azkaban behind them,_ help!_ A sweeping gesture caused a large silver shape to emerge from her wand, and turn climbing towards the South, before accelerating into the sun's brightness.

It wasn't a wolf.

'What was that?' Snape asked, without any intonation whatsoever.

'My Patronus,' muttered Tonks.

'What sort of Patronus?'

'Some sort of eagle?'

'Unless I'm very much mistaken, Ms. Tonks, that was a vulture. Why do you have a vulture for a Patronus?' Tonks had become exceptionally good at saying nothing. 'You do not want someone like me in love with you, Auror Tonks,' exploded Snape.

'But that's what I've got, isn't it?' The words were out before she could rethink them. He looked appalled. 'What?' she demanded.

'What have you managed to swallow this time?' he seethed. 'Clearly, Nymphadora, you shouldn't be allowed out on your own. Your rationality seems to be questionable at the best of times.'

'I'm not irrational,' she protested. 'Not more than the magical population generally. Most of my family, on my father's side anyway, are quite sane.'

'And choosing to marry into the Black family was what?'

'She slipped him a love potion.' Tonks gave him a twitch of a smile. 'Something she'd found in the Black family library. No known antidote.' Her smile broadened. 'You probably need to watch out for my mother, Severus. She thinks it's about time I'd found myself a nice boy.'

Snape's expression switched back to murderous. He wrenched loose the button and spat it into his hand. 'I charge you, by your Life Debt to me, to stay out of this.' He put the button back in his mouth and stepped into the icy water. Tonks watched gravity and the current take him.

'You absolved me of that,' she said, morphed and slipped in after him.

* * *

Thanks to Athena Keating-Thomas for the vulture suggestion (see favorites: 'A Question of Form', her link about vultures is particularly helpful), and to Greyfalcon for feedback.. 


	22. Chapter 22

'_Blue blue windows behind the stars,'_ Tonks sang to herself inside her head. '_Yellow moon on the rise.' _Like an old sea shanty, it was a way of forcing herself on when she was exhausted; a way of driving the slow, heavy rowing of her wings. Above the eastern horizon, a bloated moon was climbing slowly from a lumpy, grey Atlantic. _'If that damned thing can fly, without wings,' _Tonks reassured herself,_ 'I can swim.'_

Again, she propelled herself forward, pain from wingtips firing along the bones into the aching mass, below her neck, of hurt and, worse, muscles she was finding it ever harder to force into obedience. Azkaban's magically induced currents, always strong, got faster whenever anything was detected in the water and Tonks had been fighting the tide race for hours. She was tired. And she was losing ground.

Losing. _'Yellow moon on the rise.' _Remus curled up, nose to tail, with Lucy. Lucy Reive . . . reaver, had taken Remus away, taken away . . .

No.

Not hers. Remus had _never_ been hers. To Tonks' surprise and something approaching relief, she discovered that she'd finally accepted that. She truly wished him happiness; wished them both only happiness. She felt the magic of the blessing go from her and her wings stopped beating. The last blessing or curse of a witch had power and what she had felt could mean only one thing: it was over and she had lost.

Failed.

With the stasis charm in place, Snape had been undetectable by her electrical sense and invisible in the turbulent water. When she finally found him amongst the breaking surf, the shoreline had been black with Dementors. It had been impossible to take off from the water carrying his weight. She might have fought her way ashore and investigated how well Dementors liked dragons but there had been too many of them. She could have flown, gathered speed and snatched him up from the beach but that would have meant leaving him alone. Leaving him to them.

Even for a minute, she couldn't do it. Doubtless he'd taken precautions. Still, the Dementors had acted as though there were something to be had and that had been reason enough to deny them.

Too late to cross as Sirius had, clinging to the stern of the boat' she might have hung from the chain that stretched between the islands and waited for rescue; but she was too far gone to try anything clever and dragons' feet were ill designed for that. Not to be a dragon, to have only human levels of stamina, would be to lose consciousness and to sink beneath the weight of Snape's shackles. Tonks had sent her Patronus for help hours ago. Now the Pepper-up potion was wearing off and the borrowed energy had to be repaid.

No one had come.

Another and another and another weary stroke until she'd lost count; yet another wing beat and the sharp, salt sting of seawater where the manacles had abraded even the tough, scaly skin of a dragon's neck; the assurance that, as the island ahead of her, grey on grey and more imagined, more wished for than real, grew ever more indistinct, the shoreline behind her was getting closer. It wasn't her imagination: she could hear breakers behind her. It would be so easy to let go, to become human and let the weight of Snape's fetters carry her down . . . and destroy her mother completely.

It would still be better to drown than let the Dementors have her. And it would be so very easy to morph and let go. For a moment, the memory of her father tucking her into bed displaced Azkaban's dark strait until she forced herself back to reality, another rowing stroke of wet, leathery wings; another lightning pulse of pain and flashing lights ahead of her just where she thought Portkey Island was.

Perhaps they had come . . .

Tonks decided that while it might be vain hope, it was hope and seized it. _One more song, _she thought._ Just choose one more song. Something nautical . . . _And then she felt, separating from the pain, a slight tugging along her wings. Tilting the leading edges upwards, she felt herself rise. She was being pulled against the tide. There _were_ lights ahead of her. Another beat of her wings and this time she thought she was winning against the water and then she was being hauled through the crest of a wave to fall bruisingly into the next one. Somebody or some people were putting a fair amount of energy into their _'accios'_. She pulled in her wings, leaving them angled and open enough to keep her on the surface. When Snape's limp body flopped over her shoulder she gripped his manacles in her teeth.

There was no longer any need, she told herself. Others would ensure that Snape got ashore alright. But as the lights slowly got closer, she didn't relinquish her grasp.

'It's ok Tonks, you can let go now.' Both Gates and Styles were with her, knee deep in the swirling seawater. 'You can change back. We'll take care of it.' Tonks crawled out of the water, laid Snape down on the stony beach, and looked around with the detachment of extreme exhaustion; half the order had to be there. It would have to do. Time to become human again. She was vaguely aware of Gates catching her as she fell.

-

She wondered when, precisely, she might have been mistaken for the 'Wicked Witch of the East'. Of course it was entirely possible that she hadn't had a house dropped on her but it would do for a working hypothesis. Some confunded idiot was trying to make her sit up. 'Up now, darling. Swallow.'

Tonks choked and swallowed. 'Mum?'

A warm arm around her shoulders lowered her gently into scented sheets and the arms of Morpheus. 'Dora, love. Sweetheart. Nothing to worry about.' A kiss. 'Now. Go back to sleep.'

_Below her, a large spider web held an air bubble. Inside it Snape was snoring peacefully. They were trapped together in an underwater cave with Dementors wearing muggle breathing apparatus._ _ She knew that, underneath their decrepit shrouds, the Dementors had on scanty swimwear and, sooner or later, they'd start to strip off and that was something she was really not looking forward to at all; she was pulling at the web, trying to get to Snape, and getting more and more stuck to it. Despite the underwater distortion, she could hear raucous music . . . _

Tonks forced herself to wake up. Great, ribbon-tied bunches of cabbage roses infested shiny pink walls. Tonks leaned out of bed. _Swirly purple carpet._ Home; and her mother had redecorated. Tonks wasn't sure that she hadn't preferred the 'Explosion in a Sewage Farm' motif.

She allowed the noise to intrude upon her conciousness: not music: Andromeda Tonks nee Black mid rant. At least the wardrobe was in the usual place and her robes were in it. She got dressed and wandered downstairs wondering what it was about Pureblood Princesses. Andromeda, once she got started could give both Molly Weasley and Walburga Black a run for their money. It wasn't as if they didn't have wands. Tonks herself preferred to sort things out quietly, arranging an alibi as required.

What was going on in the kitchen had graduated, at some point, from disagreement to heartfelt monologue. 'Why is it that, recently, a witch cannot expect to make a few purchases without being followed about by inept and scruffy Ministry of Magic hirelings?' demanded Andromeda, tragically. Tonks decided to go back to bed.

She turned and her foot went out from under her. There was a thud as something hit the wall, a thump as Tonks hit the floor, a sharp smell of oranges and then Dawlish was helping her to her feet. Through the open door she could see that there was a fair bit of fruit mixed in with the shopping on the kitchen floor. Unexpectedly stepping into the fire as someone flued was a common means of effecting entry. Clearly her mother had been followed home in just this way.

'My daughter is in no fit state . . .' Andromeda began.

'Healer Smethwyck?' said McLaggan. Tonks recognised the Mediwitch. While she was rumoured to be good, she had always refused to have anything to do with the Metamorphmagus.

'How are you feeling?' asked Smethwyck, guardedly.

'She can walk,' said McLaggan.

'If you are feeling unwell, I could arrange to have you transported to the Ministry?' suggested Smethwyck.

'I can walk,' Tonks said, wearily. 'What's all this about?'

'Fine, but I'm coming too,' said Andromeda.

Tonks winced. 'Perhaps you should give dad a call,' she said. Given Andromeda's lack of anything like as common as sense, it was probably for the best if she stuck to shouting.

Her mother smiled a cold, cold smile. 'Certainly dear.'

_At least,_ thought Tonks, _Dad understands words like 'restraint' and 'moderation'. Mostly. _'Do you think you could tell me what's going on?' she asked.

'What it is is: Potter reckons he owed Snape a Life Debt,' explained McLaggan. 'So now he's accusing the Ministry of doing away with him and demanding satisfaction.' There was an odd twitch at the corner of McLaggan's mouth. 'Only wants us to arrest Madam Umbridge. Umbridge wants Potter obliviated and sent back to live with the muggles and, now the Wizengamot has got itself involved so it's all becoming quite interesting. Fudge thinks that you might be able to help.'

'Don't feel so good,' muttered Tonks.

'You don't say, Tonks? Maybe something you ate?'

* * *

Lyrics are from 'Helpless' by Neil Young. Sorry this took so long. 


	23. Chapter 23

_How could she?_

_-_

* * *

Andromeda, it seemed, had heard about the not quite chicken eating incident. 

And she blamed the Ministry.

Loudly and at length.

Tonks put on the kettle, picked the bread up off the floor, unwrapped it and cut a thick slice, which she buttered, and then made herself a cup of tea. She'd seen her mother loose her temper before but she would never have guessed that she possessed such a graphic and extensive, not to say impressive, repertoire of calumny and innuendo. And she could tell that Dawlish and McLaggan _were_ impressed. To the staccato shattering of glassware, as Andromeda shook with fury, they scuttled sideways around the kitchen and each seized one of Tonks' elbows.

She was congratulating herself on not spilling her tea, despite being portkeyed to Courtroom Ten, and was about to take a bite of her bread and butter when breakfast disappeared. Her fingers stung; as was to be expected when _'Evanesco!'_ was employed on something one was holding. Behind the low wooden wall that screened the lowest tier of the Wizengamot's seating, Madame Umbridge was waving a fat, admonitory finger at her and Tonks, briefly, considered fainting. (Dammit she'd just got out of Saint Mungo's). Or, alternatively, leaping forward and ripping the old bag's head off. It was just a pity that more than carpentry protected the magical judiciary.

'Sit down,' said Umbridge.

Tonks stared at Scrimgour, sitting, along with Fudge, to Umbridge's right. He refused to look back. _Fuck it_, thought Tonks. She was an Auror. She was not, as far as she knew, a defendant and Umbridge's instruction was an insult to the entire Aurory. The chains on the chair clanked. Tonks looked at them; when the chains had quieted, she sat down.

'Now Auror Tonks, we will need you to clarify a couple of matters for us in the matter of Apprentice Auror Potter's accusations regarding the death of Severus Snape,' proclaimed Umbridge. 'Do you understand?'

'No.'

'Mr. Potter has accused the Ministry of Magic, specifically the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, of murder. Obviously, such accusations are not consistent with his position as an employee of that Department.'

'I see,' said Tonks. Umbridge was attempting to use her own wrongdoing to get Potter dismissed

'Good.' Umbridge shuffled through the stack papers in front of her. 'Mr. Potter claims that he owed Snape a life-debt. Can you tell us why he should think that?'

'Because it's true?'

Umbridge looked up, her eyes calculating. 'Very well, Ms. Tonks, perhaps you can tell us why Snape was brought in to the Ministry?'

'Certainly. You had him arrested.'

Umbridge stilled. 'Administer the Veritaserum.'

'Pardon?'

'Veritaserum. While, naturally, we have no doubts about your veracity, it is a matter of justice being seen to be done.'

Tonks felt the air draw taut about her as this further insult was registered and resented by every Auror present. 'I am an Auror . . .'

'And I am Auror in Chief.' Umbridge cood. 'You needn't look so worried, Miss Tonks. This isn't about you.'

'Veritaserum . . .' began Tonks.

Oh,' said Umbridge and smiled sweetly. 'If Veritaserum were not quite safe, would it have been authorised by the Ministry of Magic?'

'Yes,' said Tonks but her reply went unheard.

'My daughter has been warned to take nothing that has not been directly authorised by Saint Mungo's!'

Tonks twisted around towards the public benches where Andromeda was standing in the front row. Generally last in, somehow the former Miss Black almost invariably found herself right at the front of the queue. Tonks wondered how her mother managed that.

'When properly brewed, Veritaserum is quite safe,' soothed Umbridge. 'Ours is brewed for us by our own experts. It is recognised . . .'

'It's recognised that, unlike bloody china, minds benefit from being used,' spat Andromeda. 'Try it some time.'

'SILENCE!' Umbridge took a deep breath and attempted to collect herself.

Andromeda sat down. 'Can you really have got stupider since you left school?' she enquired.

'One more word and I'll be forced to . . .' Andromeda assumed an expression of tragic dignity just before the camera flashed. 'Administer the Veritaserum,' said Umbridge's with a distinct shake to her voice.

Smethwyck said: 'I don't think I can be responsible if . . .'

'ADMINISTER THE VERITASERUM!'

Tonks turned as the healer approached.

Looking extremely dubious, Smethwyck offered Tonks a glass. 'This is against my own recommendations.' Tonks could see Gates and Styles, up in the corner of the benches, looking unhappy. Immediately behind them was Shacklebolt, watching Umbridge with an expression that Tonks couldn't quite interpret.

Tonks accepted the glass. There were ways around Veritaserum if the questioner were the least bit imprecise; and Tonks thought she knew Umbridge. She swirled the fluid. 'I think it only fair to say that I . . .' Tonks stared at the ground, '_do not accept_ the implications of Madam Umbridge's . . . _request_.' She drained the potion and waited. When her surroundings remained static she concluded that at least this batch had been properly aged.

'Ah yes,' said Umbridge. 'During the interrogation of the Death Eaters that we captured last week, certain information came to light. Professor Snape was arrested because he had been accused of feeding a love potion to an Auror, was he not?'

'Yes,' said Tonks. There was no ambiguity and no way round the question.

'He was accused of feeding a love potion to you, in fact?'

'Yes.'

'Well,' said Madam Umbridge. 'Shall we take it as fact that you also believe that you owed Snape your life?'

Again, Tonks reply went unheard. 'We saw Goyle's memory. That's not in question,' said Scrimgour.

Tonks fought not to cringe. With perfect clarity, she could imagine the next issue of the prophet: the full front page picture of her dragon self spewing like some animated fountain; bits of dead hen bouncing dramatically out of frame.

'Indeed,' said Umbridge. 'Do you, Nymphadora Tonks, hold the Ministry of Magic responsible for Professor Snape's death?'

'No,' said Tonks. (After all, he wasn't dead).

For a moment, Umbridge looked disappointed. 'And yet Mr. Potter does,' she mused. 'Well. Whatever Mr. Potter may have done for us in the past, it has to be said that there have always been those niggling little questions regarding his mental health. Poor boy, even when he was at school he was . . .'

Tonks shut her out remembering the words "_I must not tell lies_", cut into Potter's hand and who was responsible for that.

'Mr. Potter is a deluded and very dangerous young man,' continued Umbridge. 'Given that his strange state of mind in no way impairs his unquestioned magical abilities, surely we can aggree that it would be safer for everyone if he were not to remain amongst us.' Umbridge gazed pityingly at Potter. 'However, in recognition of his part in bringing down 'You-Know-Who, perhaps some sort of financial provision could be made. . .'

_Auror in Chief _thought Tonks. No proper Auror, no effective interrogator, would have left such an opening; and in Tonks' potioned mind, it was entirely clear that Umbridge had perverted justice before. She stared at Potter's accuser. 'I blame you,' she said.


	24. Chapter 24

'I beg your pardon?' said Umbridge.

'You had Professor Snape arrested,' said Tonks. 'You, personally, had him transferred to Azkaban.' Slightly unsteadily, Tonks got to her feet. 'I blame you.'

'Perhaps you are forgetting that Professor Snape was a Death Eater,' said Umbridge and cast a spell at the files in front of her.

Rotating slowly in mid-air, an image appeared of a human being so badly injured that further identification was impossible. Tonks, however, had seen it before. 'That _is_ Professor Snape,' she said, 'following his final Ministry interrogation after the first Voldemort war.' Umbridge gaped and missed her chance. 'There were people missing.' Tonks continued relentlessly. 'Some of them children. If Professor Snape could have said, honestly, that he'd told the Ministry everything, perhaps that wouldn't have happened. But he couldn't. He couldn't because so many real Death Eater's had been released. Severus Snape was a spy; our spy; a man responsible for saving the life of the Minister himself.'

'What?' demanded Scrimgour.

'Actually I meant Minister Fudge,' said Tonks, but he did, indirectly save your life too.' Tonks collapsed back into the chair. 'Same for many members of the Wizengamot. People Voldemort didn't like.' _Quite astonishing,_ thought Tonks as a good third of the Wizengamot winced. _Must be Pavlovian._

'Sit down Dolores.' Clutching the rail in front of him, Scrimgour stood up slowly. 'Can you prove that, Auror Tonks?'

'Yes. Of course.' Tonks rubbed at her eyes. 'Severus Snape was Janus.'

'There was never any such person,' said Scrimgour. The "Janus Files" were just a story we put about to make the Death Eaters believe that they had a traitor in their ranks; make Voldemort even more paranoid. Merely disinformation.'

'No,' said Tonks. 'That bit was the disinformation. The files were real. You were too much of a target to have been told the truth.'

The Minister's hands paled on the wooden screen. 'Then where are they now?'

'With the rest of the Ministry's critical files. In the safe room. Ask Alistair Moody.' Tonks leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes as the noise in the courtroom got louder and louder, opening them again when silence fell, broken only by the thumping of Moody's progress from the courtroom's great double doors to the centre of the floor. In his arms were two metal boxes with wide straps around them, one of them bearing a flutter of seals from two decades before.

'The Janus Files,' said Moody as an inadvertent movement from Umbridge caused the pensifix projection of the bloody mess that had been Severus Snape to reappear.

'Sweet Merlin,' whispered Fudge, eying the boxes as if they might bite. There were _stories_ about wizards implicated in the deaths of those to whom they owed a life debt. A seemingly intense consultation between Fudge, Umbridge and Scrimgour was swiftly concluded.

Even more slowly than Scrimgour had, Fudge got up. 'It is clear that the most dreadful mistake has been made,' he intoned. 'An enquiry into what happened will be launched immediately.' He turned to glance down at Scrimgour, who was opening the older of the files. Umbridge turned a death glare on Tonks. Fudge bent to whisper in Umbridge's ear. She turned to make a brief reply and Scrimgour looked as though he might choke. There was a triumphant glint in Dolores eyes. 'It is to be regretted,' began Fudge. He swallowed. 'It is deeply to be regretted that it will not be possible to return Professor Snape's body for burial as it has been disposed of in accordance with Ministry Regulations.'

'Disposed of?' queried Moody.

Unwillingly, Fudge nodded. 'Burnt.'

_Strange that it takes only a moment for the world to end,_ thought Tonks._ Only the time needed to speak a single word. _She found herself staring at the carvings adorning the Wizengamot's seating. The complicated spell work woven into the runes was common knowledge and Tonks knew that they were only a first layer. Even as a dragon she couldn't get to Umbridge. She'd have to wait. Dolores would try to take precautions. Dolores would, undoubtedly, try to dispose of her too. But here, Tonks knew that she had the advantage. Tonks was an Auror whilst Dolores was merely a bureaucrat. As the awful clarity of the mental state that Aurors called 'the zone' broke over her, she welcomed the fact that she'd feel nothing until it receded. Sound exploded around her as reality resumed.

'. . . endeavour to clear things up as much as possible right away,' Scrimgour was saying. Wand clenched in her thin hand, McGonagall stood before the Wizengamot looking ready to transfigure the lot of them into cockroaches. Beside her huddled a small group of students, _Slytherins,_ Tonks supposed, some of them crying. As McGonagall slipped an arm around one of the younger girl's shoulders, McLaggan sidled up and caught Scrimgour's attention. 'Yes, of course,' said Scrimgour. 'The Court recognises the goblins Hengefast and Griplock.

The doors to Courtroom Ten opened to admit a distinguished looking goblin, no less imposing for being bent over by age, with a tall staff of figured silver that Tonks didn't think was intended as an aid to walking. Behind him marched a younger goblin carrying a large, brass-bound ledger. As they reached the centre of the Courtroom, Tonks stood up and stepped away from the chair. Without glancing at it, Hengefast sat down and handed his younger colleague the staff, accepting the book in return. The chains on the chair seemed welded in place. With both hands on the staff, Griplock assumed a wary stance beside it.

'Have you the key?' asked Hengefast. There was a rifling through files and boxes and a key was produced and handed to the goblin who inserted it into a keyhole in the ledger's brasswork and turned it. The book fell open and Tonks could see Snape's name at the top of one of a small number of loose pages, a lace of metalwork obscuring and fastening closed the others. 'As of close of business yesterday, Severus Snape had ten Galleons in his account,' said Hengefast, 'the usual surpluses having been turned over to the Ministry of Magic.'

'Surpluses?' growled Scrimgour.

'The terms of Snape's release from Azkaban,' said Umbridge. 'He agreed to them.' The image of Snape's broken body flickered and disappeared from overhead. 'The remainder of Snape's salary went into Saint Mungo's funding.'

'I see,' said Scrimgour.

'And in this account?' said McLaggan, producing another key from his robes with the air of a muggle magician and offering it to Hengefast.

'Where did you get that?' Umbridge sprang to her feet, snarling.

'From the secret compartment in your desk while you were at Saint Mungo's being treated for trampling by sheep.' McLaggan smirked. 'When I discovered that Snape was retained by Saint Mungo's and that there was therefore a discrepancy in the accounts I started asking questions. I got some very interesting answers too. When I told him about the money unaccounted for, Moody told me about the bank key. He had no trouble at all getting in to it.'

'The sheep were trickier,' agreed Moody, casually turning his wand on the Auror in Chief.

Hengefast had closed the ledger, withdrawn the first key and inserted and turned the other.

'That is my account. You have no right!' said Umbridge.

'Indeed?' said Hengefast. Again, the book fell open. 'Payments into this account were made to a Mr. Severus Snape.' As the witch collapsed back onto her seat, the goblin smiled. 'This account is empty, all remaining funds having been withdrawn by the Ministry of Magic. If you look here you can see the amounts. Signed for by a D. Umbridge.'

Tonks took the ledger and carried it to the Minister, holding it open so he could read it. He leant forward. 'These are for thousands . . .'Scrimgour's mouth closed with a snap.

'Indeed,' said Hengefast. 'Payments from Saint Mungo's and the Ministry for Potions. More payments from Saint Mungo's for Patient Consultations. Professor Snape was an expert in both in the Dark Arts and in remedies against them. It all added up.'

Amidst a rising storm of righteous fury from both sides of the courtroom, Scrimgour raised one shaking hand to point at Umbridge. As Aurors homed in on her, he forced it back down to his side and Tonks turned away. Umbridge would be dealt with and Tonks training still held. _Seek confirmation._ Hengefast was standing very upright, leaning on his staff. Tonks bowed to the goblins and quickly handed Griplock the ledger. The body of a witch or wizard had value in places like Knockturn Alley. Or rather, various values. While it would be a nasty irony for Snape himself to end up as potions ingredients, it meant that there was still a chance.

Tonks' journey to the basement of Saint Mungo's was a blur. The Witch-in-Charge looked up from her desk to find Tonks leaning over her. 'What did you do with Professor Snape's body?' the Auror demanded.

'Disposed-of-it-according-to-the-new-Ministry-Protocols,' said the witch, sitting as far back in her chair as she could go.

'New Ministry Protocols?'

A whisper. 'Burning.'

'I suggest that you sold it.'

'N-no.'

'Professor Snape has been cleared and Umbridge has been arrested. I don't want to ask you again.' Tonks had rounded the desk and grasped hold of the witch's robes. She pulled her upwards. 'What did you do with him?'

'I did sell him.' Tonks let the witch drop and spun round to face a thin, dark-haired wizard who glared at her. 'Just as we were told to. Just not how we were told to.' The youth dropped his eyes to the white tiled floor. 'Professor Snape was our Head of House. You wouldn't understand.'

'Where is he?' Tonks asked softly.

'Draco Malfoy has him.'

Tonks looked down to see a long row of bright circles cast from windows set high in the wall above. Never before had she realised that there could be so many colours in an entirely white room. Marvelling she turned back to the young wizard. 'And who are you?' she asked.

His chin came back up. 'Theodore Knott.'

Very stiffly, Tonks nodded. 'Thank you, Mr. Knott.'

-

* * *

And thank you Duj. 


	25. Chapter 25

'Vandalise that and I'll sue your ass, Potter!'

Potter and Weasley stepped back from the studded, iron doors of the surprisingly modest, white, faux-Doric marble temple and lowered their wands. 'Hello Tonks,' said Granger, slipping out from behind a column.

'How?' demanded Tonks.

'Your mum told us,' said Potter.

It had taken Tonks about twenty minutes to locate Draco Malfoy and drag him out of his fashion shoot. 'Open it,' she snarled.

Malfoy laid his left hand on the doors which swung softly inward.

'This way,' said Malfoy as he stepped inside. Torches flared and revealed a wide staircase descending ominously into a circular recess in the floor until they reached a sufficient depth to accommodate the opening of a round, steeply sloping tunnel. In the green stone above the entrance, were silver letters. 'Toujours Pur', Tonks read, a chill running down her spine. Having spent fifteen hours searching the labyrinthine Bulstrode funerary complex, shortly after the fall of Voldemort, she wanted nothing whatever to do with the Black mausoleum. Malfoy, however, trotted down the steps quite cheerfully and Tonks quashed the inclination to stop and ask for back up. _Andromeda would not have sent Potter had there been any real danger, _she reasoned and followed more slowly.

There were exactly one hundred and eleven steps. Tonks had counted them all most carefully. At least, there had been when they came down; which, of course, did not mean that there would be the same number going back up; but it had helped to take her mind off the 'enclosed, underground' element of her surroundings. _Dragons like underground,_ she told herself. _Dragons like large, open caves with lots of room,_ came the instantaneous correction. Tonks wasn't sure that she wouldn't have preferred the capriciousness of the curtained staircase at the ministry.

Another tunnel, this one horizontal, with a vaulted, granite block roof stretched ahead and, again, Malfoy didn't hesitate. Tonks and the others caught up with him in a wide, circular chamber with eight arched openings. 'Wait,' Tonks said. 'Malfoy, do you know what you're doing?'

'The name is Draco, Nymphadora.'

Tonks paused. Laying claim to her muggleborn father's name, here where something might hear, was not a good idea. 'Draco, do you know what you're doing?'

Malfoy sneered and took the fourth exit counting clockwise._ Or, more likely, the third widdershins,_ Tonks corrected herself, hurrying after him into the tunnel. This one ended in a balcony with an elegant wrought iron railing; beyond it row upon row of boxes hung by chains at each corner from the distant ceiling. _Coffins,_ thought Tonks, with a shudder.

From either side of the balcony, flights of steps descended to the floor below. Malfoy headed down the left hand set and they followed him to discover that the entire floor was covered in water, reflecting the torches on the walls above. Mostly, it was shallow, with stone just below the surface, but here and there were deeper pools. He splashed off across the cathedral-like space and then stopped and turned around. 'Everyone has to be on the floor,' he said. 'It won't work otherwise.'

Tonks stepped into the water, hitched up her robe, and picked her way across towards Malfoy. She could hear the others, following at intervals, behind her. 'Ok,' said Malfoy. 'Watch as it comes down. From above him, in absolute silence, one of the boxes had begun to descend. Tonks clasped her arms about herself and waited.

The coffin stopped just above the water.

It was beautiful: lead panels on the sides depicted dragons that seemed to move in ripples of reflected light; on the lid there was a design of stars, or possibly crowns, and flowers. Only the underside had appeared crudely finished but, she noted, all of the bottoms of the coffins were like that. Just plain metal, although probably not lead. If it weren't just a trick of the light, the reddish patination would indicate rust and therefore iron. Malfoy had lifted the lid and leant it on its side against the chains. He bent over the coffin. 'What did he use, anyway? Surely they checked for the Draught of Living Death.'

'Stasis,' said Tonks. 'A charmed shirt button. He swallowed it.'

'Technically,' said Malfoy, 'he didn't swallow it. With a stasis charm, it can't have gone further than his throat. Snow White, remember? Or didn't your parents read you any bedtime stories?'

'Of course they did.'

'Well then, you'll know that we just need to dislodge it.'

'_Levicorpus__!'_ called Granger and Snape was swung up into the air by his left ankle. As Draco gazed on in horror, Granger and Potter splashed forward and Granger struck Snape hard behind the shoulder blades. Something small flew from his mouth and into the water. Snape's eyes opened and Potter grinned; Snape's hands shot up and fastened themselves around Potter's neck and then both collapsed as Granger appeared to faint and fall face first into one of the deeper pools.

'Hermione!' Weasley ran to splash down beside her and lift her head and shoulders clear of the water. Granger spat and sneezed and pushed herself onto her knees. Meanwhile Snape and Potter were rolling around in the shallow water, Potter managing to land one punch over his adversary's eye before Snape pulled his head back out of reach. Malfoy gently closed the coffin lid and the box began to rise on its chains. Granger and Weasley scrambled to assist Potter. Given his occupation, Snape would have wrists like wire cable, Tonks realised, as Potter dragged at them uselessly.

Let go, sir,' pleaded Granger, trying to pry his left hand off Potter's throat while Weasley struggled with the other.

'Professor Snape.' Malfoy bent to raise Snape's face toward his own. 'Severus; this is real; you're not dreaming. You've been cleared by the Wizengamot. You might even get and Order of Merlin; First Class. That is if you _don't murder the Boy Who __Lived_'

Snape blinked and gazed down at Potter. He let go of Potter's throat. 'Sorry?' he muttered, sounding as if apologising was some radical sort of experiment. Cautiously, he climbed off his victim.

Malfoy helped Snape up as Weasley did the same for Potter. The Boy Who Lived (again) rubbed at his neck. 'S' Ok,' he muttered. 'I imagine you've wanted to do that for a long time.' He gave a crooked grin. 'Probably wanted to strangle most of us.'

'Not Mr. Longbottom,' replied Snape, his lack of expression indicating that this was not necessarily a good thing . He glance around. 'Where are we?'

'The Black Family mausoleum.'

Snape froze. 'And who,' he enquired softly, 'was so extraordinarily reckless as to use an active spell in a mausoleum belonging to a family as notorious for their involvement in Dark Arts as the Blacks?'

'That would be Granger,' said Malfoy. 'You would honestly think that, by now, she'd know better. Wouldn't you?' They all looked at Granger, even Potter who, Tonks would have been prepared to bet, would have done exactly the same thing.

'Know what?' said Granger, shivering and reminding Tonks of a wet cat.

'That every nasty little curse and cantrip in the place will be awake now, activated by your '_Levicorpus_'.

Blood rushed to Granger's face. 'Why am I always the one who's supposed to know?' she demanded. 'Why is it never up to anyone else to actually think to tell me?'

'Well . . .' began Weasley.

'If someone else doesn't know something, that's just how it is but if I don't know, suddenly I'm at fault? Well, fuck you, because I'm bloody sick of it. You can find your own bloody way out.'

'I . . .' began Weasley.

'You. I bet _you_ didn't even know that your mother was training to be an Auror, did you? Until someone fucked up with a contraceptive spell and I'm just guessing as to who's fault _that _was.'

Tonks closed her eyes and hoped, really hoped, that she was dreaming and then opened her eyes again. She knew better. Idly, she wondered how long it would take her colleagues to work out what had happened to them. Or, indeed, if they ever would.

'Granger,' said Malfoy's soothingly. 'I think you may well have a point. No; in point of fact, I do believe you're right. Look, d'you mind if I call you Hermione? The thing is, I'm supposed to be taking Sandy and her parents out to dinner this evening; it took me weeks to finagle the restaurant; and just at the moment, our chances of getting out of here alive are slight to non-existant and I believe that they would be vastly improved if you would employ your not inconsiderable talents to that end.'

Granger looked at him suspiciously and then smothered a smile. 'Malfoy . . .'

'Draco; please.'

'Draco.'

'Err, Malfoy.' Potter was staring upwards. 'All of the coffins are rising. Is that supposed to happen?'

'That's so that they'll be safely out of the way,' said Malfoy; 'although, actually, the coffins aren't rising. If you'll look towards where the stairs were when we came in, you'll see that that is just an optical illusion caused by the fact that the room is going down.'


	26. Chapter 26

Malfoy was right: the stairs, along with the elegant cast iron railing, _had_ disappeared. Along with the way out.

Tonks forced her gaze upwards. This wasn't a small space and, just at the moment, it was getting steadily larger. A little above head height, above the regular courses of shaped granite, ran a decorative bas-relief. _Snakes, naturally,_ she noted. Above that, the walls were composed of irregular stone and mortar and new stones were popping into it and swelling like bubbles; in consequence of which, as Malfoy had noted, the floor was going down. Potter splashed away for a closer look at the snake frieze.

'You don't suppose it's going to try and drown us?' suggested Granger, head down, watching as the toes of one foot made a series of ripples in the shallow water.

'Nothing so unimaginative,' said Malfoy.

'Look, I'm sorry,' spat Granger, and sneezed and shivered. 'I didn't know.'

If _Granger stays wet through like that, she'll catch cold,_ thought Tonks. _Assuming that is, that__ she stays alive long enough._ Malfoy, given who his parents were, had a fair chance of getting out whatever she did and Snape was Snape. Weasley and Potter had some degree of competence.

Granger, while an unspeakable, would be the most vulnerable. Brilliant, but academic. There was, however, no chance at all that Weasley and Potter would abandon Granger and, in some ways, that simplified things.

'We're not blaming you,' said Malfoy, gently, and then spoilt it by adding: 'I'm blaming the Weasel.'

'Would someone care to explain why, exactly, we're in the Black Mausoleum?' said Snape.

'We thought you were dead,' said Malfoy. 'New Ministry Regulations call for burning. Don't want Death Eaters buried in with decent people. Actually that bitch Umbridge tried to sell you for potions ingredients. So Nott gave me a call and we . . . Malfoy trailed off, a distinct pinkish tinge to his face, even in the torchlight. 'I thought you'd be safe here,' he rallied. '_She's_ been arrested.'

'And why was I in the Ministry at all?'

'The Dementors were after something,' Tonks explained. 'I couldn't just leave you there.'

'Really? The Dementors were after something?' Snape closed his eyes wearily. 'And it didn't occur to you that they might have been after you?'

'No, actually.'

Although inwardly squirming, Tonks hadn't become an Auror without learning to brazen things out.

Snape turned. 'Potter, are you deflating?'

_It did sound__ a bit__ like that_ Tonks had to admit. She'd heard the Boy-Who-Lived make that hissing before but the acoustics were definitely doing something to the sound.

'Potter,' Tonks began. Potter held up one hand and it was hard to tell but she thought the apprentice might have shushed her too. Well, there probably wasn't anything to be gained in tearing a strip off him at this point. She didn't speak Parceltongue. Her priority had to be getting as many as possible of them out of there alive.

Or trying to. Weasley drew his wand and Malfoy grabbed him. 'Unconsciousness was just a warning,' he hissed.

Niches were forming and deepening along one wall, becoming doorways. 'Six,' murmured Granger. 'Not five or seven but six. And there are six of us.'

'Divide et impera,' said Snape.

'Divide and rule,' translated Weasley. 'What happens if we just refuse to go through them?'

The light was dimming in an unpromising fashion. Tonks looked up to discover that the torches were slowly changing into something far less friendly; narrowing, elongating and twisting downwards to pour out jets of flame.

'Is there any way we can make it back off?' suggested Weasley.

'No active spells, Weaslet. Do not use the wand.' Malfoy reconsidered and let go. 'You're right though. We don't have to be able to win. We only need to be able to cause enough damage to make attacking us not worth while. What have you got in your pockets?'

'Nothing,' grouched Weasley.

'Nothing from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes?'

'No.'

Malfoy gestured towards Potter, still deep in conversation with the decor. 'What about him?'

'We're both on a warning. Right?'

'Aurors,' snarked Malfoy. 'What about you Professor. I mean, Longbottom could blow things up without even trying.'

'Longbottom could cause devastation with no more than a bar of soap and a wet tea bag,' said Snape. 'But then I believe that he was subject to great deal of frustration. Demolition was likely to have been a form of release.'

'He should have got himself a girlfriend,' muttered Malfoy.

'Longbottom,' continued Snape, 'may also be a warped sort of potions prodigy. The frequency with which he added precisely the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time was quite impressive; particularly in that it usually happened after he got mail.'

The hissing had stopped. Potter looked surprised, although whether as a result of Snape's revelation or something the snakes had said was unclear. There was a rumble, a sudden brightness and Tonks morphed and extended her wings an instant before the modified torches belched a wall of fire. As soon as the flames subsided, she twisted her head back to see what had happened to Potter.

Potter had apparently not been attacked. He opened and shut his mouth and Tonks lowered her stinging wings. Seeing the others unharmed, Potter began hissing rather more urgently. Tonks turned her attention to her own scorched hide: shielding wasn't going to be effective as a long term strategy.

'It's me,' said Granger. 'I used the wand. I'm the mudblood. If I go through one of the doors, maybe they'll let you go.'

'No.' Weasley wrapped both arms tightly around her.

'No,' echoed Malfoy. His smile wavered only slightly. 'Actually, you're the one who's most likely to get out of here alive.' Granger looked puzzled. 'That earlier outburst about contraceptive charms? A witch carrying a child is . . .'

'Hermione?' Weasley's voice was falsetto. Granger nodded and then leant her face onto his shoulder. Weasley smiled dazedly.

'Which still leaves us trying to get out of here,' said Snape.

Beyond six narrow doorways, darkness beckoned. _Bugger that,_ thought Tonks, launching herself into the air and spiralling upwards. Twice, she circled the hanging, leaden mass of coffins. If the presence of a big stroppy dragon hadn't persuaded the mausoleum to let go, she'd have to try something different. They were big, thick, strong chains that were holding the coffins suspended but she thought she could get between them.

She decided to try for a landing.


	27. Chapter 27

It had not been the most elegant of touchdowns.

Tonks hadn't quite appreciated how big she'd become as a dragon. She found herself flat on her back, sprawled over several of the coffins and staring up at the ceiling. There were, she noted, recesses for the boxes to fit into. Also obvious was that most of them were much too small for the ornate monstrosities that swung and clashed and, once, quite painfully, nipped her toes. They would have been very much less vulnerable tucked into the ceiling with only their iron bottoms exposed. _Hubris,_ thought Tonks, _"P__ride__ comes befo__re a fall__"_ _A__lthough,__ with regard to pride, it might be as__ well to stop lying here like some__ overgrown oven ready turkey._ Her flailing tale caught a coffin lid and sent it ringing down into the abyss.

'Oi,' yelled Malfoy. 'Have a care!'

_No need to shout,_ thought Tonks. She could hear very well and, for a moment, it seemed that she could almost understand Potter's Parceltongue. Twisting and writhing she got herself upright and peered down.

'If you're quite comfortable up there?' Draco enquired and then smiled evilly. 'Minky! Minky, come here.'

Far below, a bald, bat-eared head snapped into being. If the house-elf was uneasy to find itself in the mausoleum it showed no sign of it, peering around and upwards, large eyes blinking. 'What can Minky do for the Master?'

'Minky can pass a message to my mother. You may tell her that, should anything untoward happen to me, it is my desire . . . no it was my dying wish that this mausoleum be turned over to Muggles for use as Theme Park.'

'Master?'

'Because with Bellatrix having tossed Sirius through the veil, and with Nymphadora having eaten _her_, my mother and my aunt are the last of the Blacks. Were Nymphadora and I to expire here, I hardly think that either of _them_ would have any further use for this place.'

He raised his face to stare upwards into the darkness and Tonks could see his irritation growing. 'I owe Severus Snape a life debt and, anyway, that was my own bloody coffin,' he declared. 'The function of a mausoleum, your function, it to serve my family. Not to try and put an end to the few surviving members. So you can sort your bloody self out.' He glanced off to the side. 'And shut up, Potter. You're freaking me out.'

With one final modulated hiss, Potter shut up. Moments later, the torches began to change back and the floor began to rise.

'Hermione,' said Malfoy. 'Allow me to congratulate you.' He glanced at Weasley. 'I think.' He turned back to Granger. 'Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me something? What is it that your people do exactly?'

'Pardon?'

'Your parents. What do they do for a living?'

'They're dentists.'

Malfoy looked blank for a second. 'Healers for teeth? Right. Is that seen as a respectable occupation?'

_'Pardon?'_

'More respectable than being a "male tart in skin tight trousers", for example?'

'It's a profession,' said Hermione, levelly.

Malfoy looked at her.

'The thing is - Goyle - you'll remember him from school? Well, Gregory is getting married. To Fiona Finch-Fletchly. A big, fat, Muggle wedding with a dress like a meringue, the church done out like a florist's and, quite possibly, a traditional punch-up afterwards. What I would like you and Potter to do, seeing as I have just saved your lives, is to attend that wedding and tell everyone what an utterly splendid chap he is.'

'Goyle and a muggleborn? How the fuck did that happen?' interrupted Weasley.

'Goyle and a Muggle, actually.' Malfoy sighed. 'Aunty Bella wanted him to, and I quote, "put down a mudblood"; so he went after Justin Finch-Fletchly at some sort of meet. Fiona is Justin's cousin and she found Goyle, somewhat the worse for wear and tear, in the car-park so she popped him in the horse-box and took him home.

'It turns out that one thing Goyle is good with is horses. And, because he was rather keen to stay out of Bella's way, when they asked him to stay, he did.

'Unfortunately, when he went home for his mum's birthday, there were people waiting for him. Fortunately, Nymphadora took care of that. Now, I want some nice, normal Muggle addresses for invitation to be sent to, and you will send back nice, normal Muggle acceptances and we will all attend and will, as previously discussed . . .'

'. . . tell them what an utterly splendid chap he is,' chorused Weasley and Granger.

Granger laughed. 'Ok, you're on.'

'Oh,' said Potter. 'Fine,'

'And Dora, do something with the hair.' From the walls, stairs were emerging. Malfoy was the first up them, before they were fully materialised, closely followed by Snape and the others.

As they disappeared into the tunnel entrance, Tonks, decided that it would be easier to extricate herself from the chains morphed to her smaller, human self, fell off or between the coffins, dropped back to her winged form, and spiralled down to follow them, deciding at the last moment that, yes, she really was that big, she morphed back just in time to catch the railing as she flew over it and land gracefully. Typically, with everyone else ahead of her, no-one saw any of it. Torchlight dying behind her, she hurried to catch up. 'Potter?' Potter stopped and waited. 'Something wrong?'

'No.' They climbed the stairs together.

He wasn't getting off that easily. 'Do you want to tell me what was so interesting with the snakes?'

Potter thought about it. 'Parts of this place go back almost as far as Hogwarts,' he ventured finally.

'And?'

'What the snakes said was that Slytherin didn't have any problem at all with muggleborn students. What he objected to was the removal of muggleborn witches and wizards from their parents. Just taking them as babies, or swapping them for fakes transfigured from logs of wood.'

'All those Muggle stories about changelings,' breathed Tonks.

'As soon as their names appeared in the book, they'd start looking.'

'So what happened?'

'Hufflepuff proposed a compromise: take those who performed magic before they turned seven; after that, just obliviate the kids and anyone else who'd seen anything.'

'And?'

'They wouldn't go for it. They wanted a large magical population and they believed that it would be better for the children themselves. They felt sorry for the parents but the magical children were more important. In the end Godric said that he'd accept the compromise, but only if Slytherin himself was prepared to give up Hogwarts, because that was what he'd be depriving the children of, and Ravenclaw agreed. They didn't think he'd do it.'

'That,' said Tonks, 'is a very different story.'

'Muggleborns did start school at seven, at first,' put in Granger. Tonks hadn't noticed that she and Potter were catching up. 'Supposedly, because it's so fragile, no one's touched the actual book in centuries. It's all done magically and most people suspect that's to protect squibs.' She glanced at Potter. 'No real person sends letters to a cupboard.'

'What do I do?' asked Potter.

'Nothing,' said Granger. 'And say nothing. Umbridge isn't the only one who'd like to see you mind wiped and dumped. Tonks, please.'

Tonks was forced to concede that Granger had a point. 'I'll think about that,' she said. Daylight and voices filtered down as the great doors to the tomb opened and Tonks speeded up.

There was a small crowd of people waiting outside. 'So,' began Rita Skeeter, 'Professor Snape, would you tell us in your own words how you feel about . . .' Snape disapparated. 'Ooh, a shy one,' chuckled Skeeter and vanished, followed by her photographer and some of the others.

'So, Draco,' said Narcissa Malfoy, 'if you would care to explain: what exactly is a Theme Park?' Slipping an arm around her son's shoulders she apparated him away. Granger flashed a small smile and departed in the arms of her lover. Very quickly Tonks found herself alone on the steps with her mother.

'Have you come to any agreement with Severus?' Andromeda enquired.

'Regarding?'

'Marriage. Obviously.'

'No.'

'Pity.' From the steps of the mausoleum, the view was exquisite; Tonks wondered if Andromeda could even see it. 'Snape is wealthy. Despite his youth, he has a standing offer of a Directorship at Saint Mungo's and, very shortly, he'll have a First Class Order of Merlin. From certain angles he's not all that bad looking.'

'He has a nasty temper and a devious streak a mile wide,' said Tonks.

'So would you have,' replied Andromeda. 'In short, Snape is a catch. And, unfortunately, now you're going to have competition for him. Never mind.' She smoothed down the heavy silk of her robes with a sound like steel being drawn from a sheath. 'Let us see what we can do.'


	28. Chapter 28

It was a lot bigger than she'd expected.

Behind its tiny, elegant front windows, "The Magic Shop" went back and back and then opened out behind adjacent premises. It did indeed sell magic as most Muggles understood the word: strange and pretty things and silver, as well as clothes, in muted jewel colours, smelling faintly of patchouli. The main line of business, however, and Tonks hadn't dared venture into that part of the shop, was bespoke perfumery. "Bull in a china shop" wouldn't begin to describe what would happen if she tripped amongst the glittering, little bottles and miniature, demonstration flasks of essential oils.

'How can I help you?' Lucy Reive, her long hair fastened back, almost unrecognisable in a white garment suggestive of a lab coat and a professional smile, appraised Tonks' boots and punkish, black attire. Her nose twitched. 'Tonks?' And now the smile was hesitantly real. 'I wasn't sure you'd come.'

'I had to. It was the only way of escaping house arrest.' She morphed back. 'Not the Ministry. My mum. Probably still outside; although she must know that I know she followed me here. Doesn't want me returning to work just yet. Thinks I should be resting.' _Or __doing something useful like __acquiring __new shoes__ or__ seducing Severus Snape,_ thought Tonks, hoping against hope that she'd persuaded her mother not to interfere. Andromeda had decided that she wanted Snape for a-son-in law and, like the rest of the Black family, had few qualms concerning direct action.

The werewolf went to check through the window. Glancing back over her shoulder she asked: 'Does she look as though she's just stepped out of "Vogue"?'

'That's her.'

Lucy opened the door, waved, closed the door, locked it and flipped the sign to "Closed". 'But you will be staying?'

Tonks hadn't intended to. Lucy's invitation for 'not really a hen party, just a few drinks' had arrived only a couple of hours ago. While wondering what had prompted it, Tonks had decided to make the most of her opportunity. Gently, Lucy took her wrist. 'You are staying,' she said. 'Sit down.' Tonks was manoeuvred onto an excessively chic bit of chairage. 'I just need to set alarms and lock a few things away.'

'This is yours?' asked Tonks.

'My parents,' said Lucy, slipping gracefully through the displays. 'They've retired now; apart from the usual couple of days a month. The perfumery's mine, though. One of the few good things about being a werewolf is the heightened sense of smell.'

With a whir of electric motors, metal shutters began to unroll outside the windows. Tonks sat marooned amongst the sparkling shelves realising that "shabby, down at heel," had been an act: what the Umbridge and the Ministry expected and wouldn't interfere with. Now, the last minute invitation made sense: Remus must have decided to come clean. Very carefully, Tonks stood up. 'You don't know me,' she said. 'If you'll just let me out the back way.'

'No.' Suddenly Lucy reminded Tonks of Andromeda. 'You took down "the toad". There wouldn't be a wedding if not for you. You're a friend. You're welcome.'

'You've not seen the 'Prophet',' muttered Tonks, forgetting about the werewolf's enhanced hearing.

Lucy snorted. 'At least you've never had fleas.'

In the flat above the shop, the werewolf kicked off her shoes and deftly punted them under an Art Deco monstrosity of a sideboard. As Tonks perched on the sofa to unlace her boots, the doorbell rang. Lucy bounded out in her stockings. Tonks listened as the street door opened, down below. 'Floosies,' intoned Lucy, disapprovingly,' I said six o'clock.'

'We've been to Marks and Sparks,' came the reply, followed by a chorus of 'Food Porn!'

A muttered spell extricated Tonks from her boots. She got up and tossed them under the sideboard and turned as five women, wearing beautiful clothing and understated jewellery and who were very plainly Muggles, reached the top of the staircase. 'This is Tonks,' said Lucy. 'Tonks is in law enforcement. Tonks is having a night off so be nice and don't talk to her about it. Now, who's for fizzy plonk?

She forced herself to relax as Lucy made introductions over Champagne.

While she received curious looks, no one mentioned her job and it was very nice, for once, not to be an Auror. It was nice to wear her own face and not be known as a Metamorphmagus.

It would have been a pleasant and relaxing evening if she hadn't, very quickly, discovered that Lucy and her friends had been at school together. And this was odd because, while Muggles sometimes survived the werewolf's bite, she wasn't aware of any having survived subsequent transformations. Despite or perhaps because of her relationship with Remus, Tonks had never really thought about it. Her lover hadn't wanted to talk about Lycanthropy and, somehow, she'd come to see even thinking about it more than strictly necessary as a sort of betrayal. Curled in the corner of the sofa, the Auror watched Lucy over her wineglass and wondered if she knew that she was, in all probability, a witch.

If what Potter had told her was true: if only those who performed magic went to Hogwarts, it would make sense. Raised in a comfortable and loving home, a Muggle born child could quickly grow out of believing in magic. Only after she'd been bitten would Lucy have discovered the truth. Tonks needed to speak to Remus. And Granger. And a number of other people.

In the meantime she needed to use the bathroom.

When she came out, Lucy was being chivvied into the bedroom to get changed into 'something that doesn't look like a dentist'. As Jenny and Sara shut the bedroom door behind them, the other three women rounded on Tonks.

'Law enforcement?' said Julia, handing Tonks her refilled glass.

'Not tonight,' said Tonks.

'Ok, then. Let's talk about Lucy.'

Tonks sat down as the others arranged themselves around her.

'So,' said Julia, 'Lucy's in Edinburgh being an analytical chemist. And then she comes back and something's wrong and she doesn't want to talk about it.'

Tonks said nothing.

'And then Lucy disappears. She's gone nearly five years and then she comes back looking like death dug up and she still doesn't want to talk about it and her parents are over the moon but they're not saying anything either. Least of all about her unexpected change of career. And now you're in "Law Enforcement".

Tonks made a thoughtful moue and sipped her wine.

'And Remus Lupin, her husband to be? We're not sure if someone of that name actually exists.'

'Leave it alone,' said Tonks.

'You tell us why we should,' said Julia.

_Or?_ thought Tonks. The closed look on Julia's face suggested that she knew something, or thought she did. 'What does Lucy say?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing at all?'

'She said that she'd been in a war.' Julia looked at her glass as though it contained something sour. 'We hoped we'd get more out of her tonight.'

The bedroom door swung open. 'Back off girls.' Lucy emerged, hair loose, still fastening her dress. 'Tonks can't tell you anything.'

'Lucy, there are people I can talk to. People I _have_ to talk to. I don't know what you're doing but you're an analytical chemist. You've got your own laboratory for your perfumes. And you're bloody hiding something. You disappear for days! It's hard not to . . . If you're in trouble, Lucy, there are people I know who can help.'

Tonks choked on her wine as light dawned like an incendiary device: Lucy's friends were worried about illegal drugs. Well, that she could do something about. 'She _was_ in a war.' The Auror sighed and stood up. 'But now the people who might have gone after her family, can't.' She reached into her jacket pocket for her MLE identity card. Witches or wizards would see the real thing; Muggles would see whatever they needed to see. Whatever Julia saw made her straighten and stare at Tonks.

Tonks smiled apologetically. 'Ok?'

It seemed to be. 'Sorry Lucy.'

Lucy grappled her friend's head and smacked a kiss on her forehead. 'Thank you.'

There was a small, choked huff. 'Wrong time of the month,' muttered Julia, blushing. 'Always makes me a bit . . .'

'Right time of the month,' said Louise. 'Personally, I enjoy it. Be as bolshie as I like. Not to mention what it does to the old libido.'

'Not so old,' said Julia. 'If you don't mind.'

'Point, is' said Louise, 'men are like that all the time and because we're like that a couple of days a month, we get treated like monsters.'

'You are absolutely right, Louise,' said Lucy in careful tones. 'I absolutely couldn't agree more.' She paused for effect and then muttered 'Wouldn't dare,' into her wineglass.

'Bitch,' said Louise. 'Even so, Remus Lupin's still very strange.'

'Undercover work,' said Tonks.

Julia looked at her. 'Thought he said he was a teacher.'

'Ah yes but, did he say what he taught?'

'I think he avoided that.'

'Well, if that's all settled,' said Lucy, 'who's hogging the Rioja?'


	29. Interview with the Werewolf

'Lucy.' said Tonks, 'Your sofa is trying to eat me'

Across the coffee table aforestation of candles and empty bottles, the werewolf stirred in her armchair. 'Whut?'

'_You shouldn't try to drink a metamorphmagus under the table_' thought Tonks. 'Your sofa,' she reiterated patiently, 'is trying to eat me.'

A clattering as Lucy failed to avoid the coffee table was followed by Tonks' left hand being seized firmly. 'Just don't turn into a dragon,' said Lucy. 'The floors have all been treated for woodworm. They're not very strong.'

'Dragons don't weigh that much,' protested Tonks. 'Hollow bones. Most of the body's given over to gas production so . . .'

'Just don't.' Lucy's heaving on her free arm accompanied the sofa making a noise like a cat coughing and ejecting her. As Tonks was hauled abruptly onto the floor Lucy went backwards over the table, her heavy skirt upending it. Sudden darkness resulted from the majority of the candles that had been providing the room's illumination hitting the carpet. Along with a burning smell.

'_Evanesco'. _

'_And that,'_ thought Tonks_, 'answers the questions as to whether Remus' new paramour is a witch or not. That and the sofa's independence.' _Such events were typical of the onset of magic in children and, apparently, adults too. She sat up and peered over the overturned table. Lucy's spell had cut through the carpet, the underlay and the top of the floorboards. There was the smell of freshly cut timber.

'Sort it out in the morning,' said Lucy.

'_Or let Remus sort it out,'_ thought Tonks. It was what she'd have done. 'Time I went.'

'Actually I wanted to talk to you'. Tonks glanced at the voracious sofa, got up and sat down on the chair. 'Which I rather imagine you'd already worked out.'

'From the way you were looking at me all evening? 'queried Tonks.

'And, given the circumstances under which Remus became your ex, my having the temerity to ask you here at all.'

_When, at some time after midnight, all of Lucy's friends had gone home, with significant others or in the backs of taxis, Tonks had remained and the conversation had very quickly veered into dangerous waters. _

'_You're never there,' Lucy had said,' when the Ministry comes in and takes away all the werewolves and then lets Remus, and only Remus, go. Because of you. It's not making him popular. '_

'_He's never said anything,'_

'_Of course not. And, with the moon, it all gets a bit . . . fraught. Remus has a wand but he won't use it. Not against a bunch of kids, even when he's outnumbered. They listen to me, but by the time I arrived he was a mess. I couldn't take him to Saint Mango's so I took him home. Lucy had tugged her hair back from her face. In the gentle light of the candles, she had resembled Titian's 'Venus'. Or perhaps Venus' older smarter sister and Tonks had swallowed because, no matter how rough Lucy felt in the morning, she would at least wake up with her own face; not something that had followed her out of her nightmares._

'_Remus is different as a wolf: so much more self-assured.'_

_Tonks had to ask. 'Is that how you . . .'_

'_I didn't have Wolfsbane. I'd bought it, but given it to someone.' The werewolf had glanced up, eyes full of apology. 'I'm sorry. I didn't intend it to happen but, even with the Wolfsbane . . . . Remus smells amazing: absolutely right. It just sort of washes right over you, like being together in the presence of god or something.' Lucy had sighed. 'I love him. Enough to let him go if I thought he'd be happier with you. The thing is, Tonks, you're an Auror. And, the way things are, that's enough to get him killed.'_

_Tonks had argued. The argument had expanded and they had both drunk a great deal. Lucy's view of the underside of the bright, shining edifice that was the Ministry of Magic had been educational. The sofa had been exceedingly comfy and Tonks, the better to concentrate, had closed her eyes. ..._

'So,' said Tonks, 'what did you want to talk about?'

'I'll make some tea shall I?'

'What did you want to talk about?'

'Snape.'

'Severus Snape?

'Him. Yes.'

'. . . ?'

'Are you serious about him?

'Are you thinking of starting a collection?' _'Of my exes'_ went unsaid.

Lucy winced. 'You seem keen to protect him.'

'And?'

'Remus went to Hogwarts. Theoretically at least, he's a citizen. He's educated, so he can buy a wand here legally.' She drew her own wand. 'I have dual nationality so I'm allowed to bring one in. Actually, my name's not Lucy; It's Lucretia.'

'Really?'

'I've got some more wine.'

'Right.'

Lucy settled onto the sofa and got on with it. 'Greyback kept himself busy. There are _at least_ seventeen children who should be at Hogwarts and aren't; a lot more who won't be going. Remus was the only one I know of. They never tried again and I'd very much like to know why.

'I don't know.'

'No-one does. But whatever happened, it's Snape who's getting the blame.'

'That's ridiculous.'

'Snape outed Remus when he was a teacher.'

'Remus didn't drink his _Wolfsbane_. It wasn't his fault but he was out of control on school grounds. The Dark Arts position was cursed. If he hadn't left when he did something worse would have happened. And anyway, it was my impression that he'd outed himself.

'Yes, but it looks as though something happened while they school together as kids and, as a result, the experiment wasn't repeated. If I can find out what, maybe I can call the off the dogs. Until then, Snape's in danger.

Tonks smirked. 'Anyone daft enough to tackle Snape's in danger.

'That too, of course. Anyway, it does give you a reason to go and have a little chat with him.'

'True,' said Tonks. She got down and hauled her boots out from under the sideboard and started to put them on. 'Lucy,' she said, 'what do you know about an organisation called "Werewolf Information"?'

'That the choice of name was unfortunate given what happened with the Women's Institute last month?'

'Ah. So you heard about that?

'Who didn't? 'Lucy's grin faded. 'But that was a bloody awful thing to happen to a nice bunch of well intentioned, middle aged women. Those idiots from the Ministry simply _Obliviated_ the lot of them. So now they're probably having nightmares and anxiety attacks and not even the faintest idea why.'

When Lucy began to talk again, her voice was oddly soft. 'They were the same when I was bitten. I was at work the first time I changed. My colleagues weren't stupid. They realised there was some sort of cover-up. We investigated in secret. I have no idea how the Ministry found out.

'Their response was all round _Obliviation_ along with the suggestion that I'd been doing something that I needed to cover up. Which, given that I was an analytical chemist, obviously meant drugs. And it didn't matter that I'd be unemployable because, being a _werewolf_, I couldn't be expected to hold down a decent job. They all acted as if I was just too stupid to understand.'

Lucy broke off and blinked.

'And they'd _Obliviated_ my fiancée. Catch 22. I wasn't allowed to marry him without telling him that I was a were and because he was a Muggle, and we weren't related, I wasn't allowed to tell him anything at all; certainly not where I was disappearing to every month. Martin tried to stick by me. Wouldn't countenance the drugs rumours. We might even have had a chance if Grayback hadn't decided to recruit me. You do realise that he could only have found out through the Ministry? I was never near Saint Mungo's.' Lucy's face twisted. It was several moments before she could speak again.

'Muggles, when they get bitten, die at the next full moon. I couldn't take the risk.'

Feeling as if she'd been mugged, Tonks struggled for something to say. 'I am so sorry,' she whispered.

'The Ministry,' said Lucy 'is corrupt. I don't know if it's salvageable. Before I met you and Harry, I'd have said not.'

Tonks finished with her boots and straightened. 'Harry,' she said, 'is probably the least corruptible person I have ever met. He's like some sort of "Holy Fool". Since I'm supposed keep him out of trouble, he scares me. The Ministry . ... It's just a tiny minority in the Ministry who are bad. Unfortunately, most of them are stupid.'

'Unfortunately,' said Lucy, 'that's sufficient.'

'We're trying,' said Tonks. 'With "You-know who" out of the way, it should be getting easier. People aren't so afraid now. Muggleborns and half-bloods are becoming more influential and we do tend to be . . . less set in our ways. She smiled carefully. 'Thank you for inviting me tonight, Lucy. Your friends are a lot of fun and I'm glad we've had this talk. I'll have a word with Snape, but have you considered asking Remus?'

The two women looked at each other before answering that particular idea together: 'He'd sulk.'

* * *

This has been the document of doom.

The first time my computer crashed the company with which it was insured first denied that they had any obligation (despite the large sign overhead and the brochure that said that they did) and then sat on the machine for over two months before explaining that they didn't have a power cord so they couldn't do anything .(PC World, a big company who'd sold the machine and had lots of them). I lost all data when I gave up and rebooted.

This chapter had been a bugger to write being mostly (hopefully funny) exposition dump. I wrote it again. My computer crashed. The computer company came and took away my machine and lost it.

I was sent a new replacement laptop. Still unhappy with the chapter, I reworked it. Finally deciding to post and get on with the story, I discovered that my children, in fighting over the machine, had pulled off the on switch.

Given the cost of repair, I bought myself a netbook. By this time I was getting more than a bit nervous of this chapter. Eventually I started writing it anyway. The screen cracked.

I replaced the screen.

'Back up,' you say. Cue two external drives that didn't bounce at all.

I now have a spare (old, slow) laptop that belonged to my mother and a flash drive.

I'm not afraid.

(Wanders off to check the fire alarms and flood defences).

I'm sorry about the unconcionable delay. I don't know what more I can say except: 'Thank you for reading'.

unlikely2


	30. Beneath Saint Mungo's

The reception area at Saint Mungo's hospital wasn't particularly busy for a Saturday morning, which was to say that it wasn't more than three quarters full. Approaching the desk, Tonks heard the sound of scuttling behind her; she turned to see robes disappearing out towards the street and several newly vacant seats.

Huffing slightly, she turned towards the toilets. Out of sight she changed her appearance and re-emerged, catching the door before it could close and glancing back over her shoulder to complete the illusion. Sure enough, a fair number of those waiting continued watching the door. To many readers of the 'Prophet' her pink hair spoke 'dragon' and it scared them. While Tonks was aware that levels of stupidity that would tend, rather quickly, to eliminate an individual from the Muggle gene pool could persist for generations amongst Magicals, it was still annoying. She approached the desk.

'I'd like to speak to Professor Snape.'

The receptionists smirked at one another.

'It might be possible for you to make an appointment. If you have a good enough reason.' A supercilious smile accompanied the opening of a large blue book.

Tonks waved her ID. 'I'm from the Ministry.'

The glances the receptionists exchanged suddenly hardened. 'Wait over there.'

Tonks had already been to Hogwarts where she'd discovered that while Snape was still employed there, (Newts and Head of House duties only); he would be spending the next few days at the hospital. Had the last owls to the Aurory from Saint Mungo's not been so very definite concerning the issue, she'd just have apparated into one of the hospital's areas without apparition wards and gone hunting for him. Reluctantly, she decided that it wouldn't be clever to annoy them more than they already were annoyed. Instead she smiled pleasantly and wandered off into the cafe where she bought herself a cup of tea, a slice of fruitcake and a copy of the 'Quibbler.'

She was just beginning the crossword when she noticed one of the receptionists approaching with an orange queremy in her hand. 'There you go,' she said, allowing it to float away.'

'Thanks,' muttered Tonks, bolting the last of her snack as the orange ball drifted out of the cafe. She could see it bobbing gently against the door to the stairs. Like many things, as they got older, queremies became unreliable. They were supposed to wait for you. This one, clearly, didn't. The door opened and the orange ball escaped through the gap.

Tonks sped after it. 'Sorry. It went down,' said old wizard who had opened the door.

She gave him a grin. 'It won't escape me.'

There was no sign of it on the floor below so she continued down.

Built over centuries on an ad hoc basis, below ground Saint Mungo's consisted mainly of meandering corridors, corners and steps connecting rooms and spaces originating at this level with those encroaching from above. Nothing was ever done away with that might yet be used; instead it was sent down into what had originally started out as a cellar and grown. Two levels below ground she found the orange ball and, leaning on one of the doors, followed it through into the labyrinth.

The queremy disappeared round a corner and Tonks got after it; a minute later it was tapping was against a door. A sign served to differentiate the door from almost every other one she had passed but a large amount of something corrosive had been spilt on it. With difficulty she could make out lettering that looked a bit like M something Blech. Tonks knocked and then went in. 'Hello I'm here to see Professor Snape.'

This being a hospital full of medical students, for a moment she was inclined to believe that some joker had dressed a skeleton and propped it at the desk over a pile of paperwork but, as the pale cranium tipped back, there was a face; not an especially nice face but definitely features, including a ears and nose supporting enormous, green, circular lenses on thin steel frames. The face stared at her.

Tonks stared back. Medical students weren't allowed to create inferi. Nor were they allowed to charm evil spectacles to give a semblance of life to corpses to which they were attached. On the other hand, as an Auror cadet she'd done various first aid courses and had subsequently gone drinking with these people so she wasn't letting go of the wand just yet. 'Hello.'

'I'm given to understand that you're from the Ministry?' A voice like the shuffling of ancient parchment bypassed her intellect and went straight for her hind brain. It took her a moment to reprise what had actually been said.

'Yes?' _'Dammit,' _thought Tonks. _'Control!'_

'And this would be concerning what precisely?'

Tonks stood at ease and put her hands behind her back. 'If I could speak with the professor?'

'Professor Snape has been counselled to put his affairs in the hands of our legal department and he has, very wisely, chosen to accept that advice. You may speak to me Ms. . . .?

She smiled. 'It would be much simpler if I spoke . . .'

'Whilst it would undoubtedly be simpler if Mr. Snape were to waive all rights to recompense, especially "given the parlous state of the Ministry's finance at the present", you may advise the Minister that that is not going to be happening. Not now and not ever.' Light reflected steadily from green glass. 'And now, if you would care to apprise me of your name for the accounts?

'Accounts?

'The Minister has already been informed that he should not expect further to utilize my valuable time without certain charges accruing.'

'No!' Tonks shook her head. 'I have reason to think that he might be in danger. I'm a friend of Snape's. I helped get him back from Azkaban.' She turned her hair back to pink. 'You might remember: it was in the papers.'

'I do not care to sully this office with trivia. What exactly did you do?'

'In my animagus form I'm a dragon . . .'

'You're wasting my time.'

Tonks closed her eyes, shrugged and then morphed to discover that the desk and its occupant had disappeared; after a moment's reflection she looked down to discover evil green glasses gazing directly up at her. Smoke trickling from her nostrils, she bared one long tooth. 'Point carried, I believe Ms. . . .

'Tonks.' The face tipped back to the horizontal.

'Nymphadora Tonks?'

'Yes.'

'Then Andromeda Black is your mother and your father's the _Unspeakable _to whom she fed love potion.' Pale hands rubbed one another. 'The Ministry wanted to throw away the key'. The odd susurration might have been laughter. 'A fascinating case but ultimately simple.' The green glasses had stilled. 'And, I suppose, given your father's condition at the time of your conception, that would make you a "dragon born of bad faith".'

'Pardon?

'Thank you. You may go.'

'That sounded suspiciously like a prophecy.'

'I'm sorry I can't help you.'

Tonks gritted her teeth. 'Why can't you help me?'

'Wouldn't be ethical.' The evil green glasses sounded cheerful. 'Not that I wouldn't like to help you, of course. It's always nice to see a member of the family doing well.'

Tonks stared.

'And a member of my old House too. Not many Blacks in Hufflepuff. And probably quite smart if you're an Auror. There was upward curving grimace. 'Well it's been a pleasure meeting you Ms. Tonks. A gesture and the queremy was heading for the door. 'Oh, and do be careful please. There are a lot of quite valuable antiquities down at this level.' Tonks gave a wary little smile and followed the orange ball out. Not five minutes later, she tripped over a stack of carved wooden bedpans; when she got up, the queremy had gone.

It was when she didn't immediately incendio the bedpans that Tonks became aware that she was still using occlumency to keep calm. Looking around at the low, narrow corridor with its unmarked doors off, she became again aware of how much she disliked enclosed spaces. Apparition failed, not unexpectedly and she could feel panic and something else trying to surface. Almost immediately she recognised that 'something else' was the dragon and, while her animagus form was far too big for the narrow corridor, the creature's almost eidetic memory was available to her. She turned and began to retrace her way back to the stairwell.

Congratulating herself on her navigational skills she was dismayed to discover, when she reached the staircase, that the doors were locked and padlocked and there was a small note on which was printed 'Closed for Building Work'. Tonks cursed. There were other stairs that she knew of but they were on the other side of the building._ 'Right then,_ she decided. _'Treat it as a maze._'

By her estimation, Tonks had been walking for an hour. In that time she had been up one level and, she thought, a few steps at a time, down a further two. Little, luminous arrows marked her path. A simple spell would erase all of them once she knew where she was. She turned a corner to discover that the corridor terminated in a set of double doors. Smiling, she pushed through to discover, instead of the expected staircase, an old fashioned lecture theatre of the kind that Muggles had used before they had anaesthetic.

A single light hung down over a crude and heavy, wooden table. Beyond, she could see more doors. All else lay in shadow. Intuition screaming, Tonks ventured in keeping her back to the wall. As the door shut behind her a curtain stirred. A moment later there were bits of flaming wax strewn over the table and benches and the curtains were on fire. As she cleared up the mess, Tonks decided that it had been a bloody stupid place to keep a wax anatomy model. She wondered if they'd miss it. There was something seriously unpleasant about this space and she was relieved to put it behind her. Then the corridor turned a corner and there _were_ more stairs. Unfortunately they led down.

Tonks sat down on the top step and wrapped her arms around herself. She felt cold and the situation was fast becoming ridiculous. This wasn't a guarded manor or mausoleum, although she suspected the lecture theatre had seen a few fatalities; it was no more than a glorified basement. She was just tired. Thinking about her recent conversation, the mention of family, given that Draco Malfoy was also a "dragon born of bad faith", had been a clue. She would ask her mother and, if Andromeda didn't know, she'd be having a chat with her cousin. There was something else, Tonks realised, with a growing feeling of depression: if the evil green glasses had known about her sorting, that argued that her mother's case had still been open eleven years after the event and was perhaps unclosed even now.

Tonks got up; the trick was to keep moving. She looked around and noticed that there was something familiar about the tiling. Strangely, there were no tiles on the wall at the top of the stairs where the stairwell might have continued up. Without thinking, she reached out and tapped the wall and analysed the sound. No stairwell. As far as she could detect, and Tonks was guessing several metres; behind the wall was solid.

The bottom of the stairs gave way to an open space and a larger, arched tunnel crossing at right angles. All along the nearer wall were stacks of boxes. Tonks moved closer to read: 'Lost and Found 1911'. In front of her was a vertical drop with, propped against the edge, a small set of wooden steps. Again, she looked around but it was the change of air pressure and the familiar noise of a train that told her that she was in a disused Underground station.

It was an answer of a sort. She could open a hole in and then repair any wall she was likely to encounter; the anti-apparition wards wouldn't extend beyond the boundary. She didn't like the look of the wooden steps so she bent down and put her hand onto the edge of the platform preparatory to hopping down into the rail bed.

'Ms. Tonks!'

The auror stood and turned round.

'Mr. Knot?'

* * *

'queremy' from 'sequere me' or 'follow me' in Latin.


End file.
